NJ Students Stranded at School, Dad Has 13-Hour Commute

What to Know

• Students in NJ school district were forced to stay overnight after the season's first snowstorm plagued roads around the Garden State[hhmc]

• Buses and parents were unable to get to students and children in West Orange [hhmc]

• Staffers at the middle school tweeted out photos of students playing games, eating dinner, sleeping on gym mats and watching movies[hhmc]

Traffic, mass transit and the evening commute got so bad during Thursdays storm that students in one New Jersey school district were forced to spend the night at school, with little hope of getting home until after sunrise.

Students at several West Orange schools, including Liberty Middle School and West Orange High School, were trapped because buses and their parents couldnt get to them during the historic storm.

Staffers at the middle school tweeted out photos of students playing games, eating dinner, sleeping on gym mats and watching movies as they awaited their parents and guardians to pick them up, more than 12 hours after the final bell.

But things were more grim at the high school, where one parent sent News 4 photos of kids sleeping on top of cafeteria tables covered in what appeared to be tarps or emergency blankets.

NJ Students Stranded Overnight at School Due to Weather

One man who lives in West Orange told News 4 about his 13-hour evening commute that ended Friday morning.

“If I could sum it all up in one word I will say treacherous it was very treacherous,” Glen Collins said as he was picking up his son at West Orange High School around 5:30 a.m. Friday.

In Maplewood, a school bus was caught on camera stuck in a front yard off a side street 7 hours after school got out for the day, an indication as to how treacherous road conditions actually were — and how delayed kids were getting home.

On Route 80, drivers were forced to push their cars on the snow-covered major roadway that appeared to be a parking lot.

New Jersey State Police reported at least 555 crashes and more than 1,000 motorist aids, which usually consists of spin-outs, flat tires and breakdowns. There was one fatality involving a car and train on trucks, Gov. Murphy said Friday.

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