When trying to predict what the first few weeks of college will be like, most teens think of orientation seminars, getting acquainted with Greek life, and frequenting Bed Bath and Beyond in order to buy any forgotten necessities for dorms.
Few would imagine having to be forced into an emergency situation due to a Category 1 hurricane. However, this was what the nine recent Staples graduates from the class of 2012 had to face during their first few weeks at Tulane University.
“The hurricane really sucked because we missed a bunch of classes so we have a lot of work to make up,” Alec Kaplan ’12 said. “We had to sleep on the floor in the hallways with no power because they feared the windows would shatter in our rooms.”
In preparation for the hurricane, Tulane officials continuously updated their Emergency Notices website with information on hurricane season procedures and emergency preparedness. However, some students felt that even this wasn’t enough to keep them notified about the hurricane’s progress.
“I would say the mood was more towards confusion because we had very little information about what we were supposed to do during the storm,” Kaplan said.
Despite the dangerous situation, some of the recent graduates capitalized the situation by using the hurricane as a method to socialize with others in their residence halls since all freshmen were locked inside of their dorms.
“The hurricane brought forth a legendary week of no school, also known as ‘the Hurrication’,” Will Streiter ’12 said. “I spent pretty much all my time meeting new people and getting to know them, and when I wasn’t, I was probably sleeping.”
New Orleans, the city in which Tulane is located, has experienced many hurricanes in the past. Kelsey Garrison ’08 was three days into her freshman year at Tulane when she was informed of Hurricane Gustav, a Category 4 hurricane, coming. Garrison, unlike Streiter and Kaplan, evacuated New Orleans on the last JetBlue flight out of the city.
“ I spent the break heartbroken over the idea that this storm could be another Katrina and that the school I had already in a week come to love so much would be destroyed,” Garrison said.
Though the hurricanes in New Orleans have been both unprecedented and scary for the Staples graduates attending Tulane, they all seem to still love attending the school.
