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.

Homeless

"We have a number of grad students, about 80 international, who are not able to travel home because of visa requirements," said David Terraso, media information specialist at Georgia Institute of Technology. "We're looking to locate them in a furnished apartment at the moment. They are initially assuming it will be for one month, but it could very easily extend to two months."

About 275 Tulane students arrived at Georgia Tech from Jackson State around 3 a.m. Wednesday. Many had not had hot food or showers for days and some had been out of contact with their families since before the storm.

"I was able to contact my brother by Internet from Georgia Tech," said Venkat Tinnium, 37, a fifth-year engineering graduate student at Tulane who is from India. "When I looked at my e-mail it was completely blocked because all my family members were trying to contact me … For the past two days, they were very much scared because I was not able to contact them at all."

Tinnium has a multiple entry visa, meaning he can travel back to India and return for school at any time, but his travel documents are still in New Orleans.

"All my belongings are in New Orleans and it's all flooded and I have nowhere to go," Tinnium said. "All my relatives are in India. I don't know how long I have to stay in Atlanta. As soon as New Orleans improves, I want to return."

According to Tulane's emergency Web site, fallen trees make it "almost impossible to drive or even walk on campus." There is no power in any of the buildings, other than the few where Tulane controls the power source.

A timetable for repairing the damage is also in question.

"Things continue to be unstable in New Orleans, although there is hope that we have experienced the worst," reads the latest Web post, dated Aug. 31, 6 p.m. "We continue to put the safety of students and employees first. We are working around the clock to bring continuity to the university and to re-establish our presence, however much of this is dependent on the city of New Orleans and Mother Nature. … Over the next few days we will have a better handle on the timeline for our recovery … Tulane University is a great institution with loyal students, faculty, staff and alumni. We will recover from this event and be stronger because of it."

"I'm hoping I can go back to New Orleans as soon as possible," said Adam Frick, 26. "I have a house there and I have a housemate I have to find."

In the Dark

Frick had been in New Orleans for about two weeks when the hurricane warning was issued. He was scheduled to start the Latin American graduate studies program this week.

"It was 1 a.m. on Friday night when I saw on the news there was a Category 4 hurricane on the way," said Frick, who is from Indiana and had never been in a hurricane before. "I didn't know how to respond. My housemate had been in New Orleans for 10 years and said we shouldn't take it as seriously as the media was making it out to be."

Ultimately, Frick decided to leave. His housemate dropped him off at the Tulane bus heading toward Mississippi, then returned home to wait out the storm. Frick has not heard from his housemate since.

"The bottom line is that we're OK and most people are concerned about how people are in New Orleans," Frick said.

Frick and his fellow students did not understand the severity of the storm when they were riding it out in Mississippi.

"Without power we were without any reliable news," said Jennifer O'Brien, a Tulane freshman from Huntington Beach, Calif. "There were a lot of rumors going around. Some of the worst were things about the cemetery floating away and dead bodies being on campus."

O'Brien described mixed emotions when she finally did see the news once she reached Southern Methodist University in Dallas this morning.

"It was kind of scary because I had been in New Orleans for a couple days and seen these places and recognized where it was there was now chest-high water and all this destruction," O'Brien said. "All of this destruction happened in so little time. But in a way it was a relief. It was something that is concrete and not rumors of kids who had been in the dark."

O'Brien was reunited with her family Wednesday evening, to the relief of her mother, Deborah.

"I had just gotten to the point of saying I had spent all this time teaching her to be independent and I had to trust that, but I didn't expect to have a hurricane thrown in there," Deborah O'Brien said. "I spent a lot of time in the next few days second-guessing myself."

Jennifer O'Brien plans to return to Tulane soon as possible.

"If we've stuck it out this long we're going to keep sticking it out," O'Brien said. "A lot of students plan to come back as soon as they can to help with the cleanup."