After Evacuation During Orientation, Tulane Students Sent Home Indefinitely

Sept. 1, 2005 -- -- Those initial moments after the buses pulled away from Tulane University on Saturday felt like the start of an adventure, the kind meant to fill a college freshman orientation.

Excited teenagers set up their blankets side by side with potential new friends on the floor of the evacuation shelter. As the rain started to fall, some ran outside between the drops, others stayed inside, making Hurricane Katrina T-shirts, working on jigsaw puzzles or introducing themselves to each other in cafeteria lines.

But as the rains intensified, the wind picked up and hours in the dark turned to days, the Tulane students began to realize how serious Hurricane Katrina really was, even if they couldn't watch the news coverage on television due to power outages.

"At first it was like an adventure -- a camp out or sleepover," said Kate Frankola, a Tulane freshman from Pittsburgh. "Then there was a time when patience was the biggest part of the atmosphere. But yesterday when we lost power and water, then it was frustration, almost desperation. We stopped thinking about what it's going to be like at college and just wanted to get out of there."

On Saturday, Tulane University -- located in uptown New Orleans, about four miles from the French Quarter -- evacuated approximately 400 students, mostly freshmen who had arrived that day for orientation, along with about 100 faculty and staff members to Jackson State University in Mississippi. The original plan was to resume classes by Wednesday but, with the devastation left by Hurricane Katrina, the start date is up in the air, and will be determined in the "next few days," according to Tulane's emergency Web site.

Students rode out the storm on the hardwood floor of the Jackson State University Student Center and were then evacuated a second time early this morning after they lost power and water, with some sent to Atlanta and others to Dallas.

For students like Frankola, 18, the latest development means buying a plane ticket to Pittsburgh and beginning a waiting game until Tulane reopens. But other Tulane graduate students and international students are scrambling to find temporary housing outside of New Orleans.