Jazmyne Sutton
Staff Writer
Although school began normally for most students on the Pepperdine campus, students and alumni in Louisiana this week found themselves preparing for the worst as Hurricane Gustav headed for the coast.
Pepperdine alum Audrey Reed, who studying at the Tulane University Law School in New Orleans, experienced her first hurricane evacuation.
“I decided to get out of the city to be on the safe side so I went up to Mississippi where I have some relatives,” Reed said. “I just figured I would make a vacation out of it.”
When New Orleans officials called a mandatory evacuation on Friday, Reed had to leave quickly and was not able to take every valuable from her apartment. She said she worried that her apartment could flood, a tree could fall on the building or someone could break in.
“I knew that when I was signing up to go to school in New Orleans I was a assuming this risk, and it was a possibility,” Reed said. “I just didn’t think it would happen so soon. I have never had to evacuate before, so it is a really scary experience.”
Although the storm did not directly hit the New Orleans area, most of the power lines are still down and tree limbs clutter the streets, USA Today reported. Business owners were allowed back into the city on Wednesday, but today is the first day city officials will allow residents to return to the city, according to the New York Times.
Sophomore Caroline Ford of Baton Rouge, who is participating in Pepperdine’s international program in Lausanne, had to change her flight to Malibu because of airport closures in Louisiana.
“It has been really stressful just because I had to leave with a day’s notice, so I had to try and get packed and leave my family knowing this big storm was coming through,” Ford said. “It has been difficult to get in touch with them. I am leaving the country for a year and I can’t communicate with them as much so it is hard.”
The pool at Ford’s home is caving in due to storm damage, but the house is intact because her family boarded up their windows and no big trees grow near the house, according to Ford.
Voluntary evacuations occurred in the city of Lafayette, west of New Orleans, where sophomore Kaitlin Flynn decided to stay with her father, who wanted to wait out the storm.
“A lot of people left, [because] everyone is just really cautious because of what happened with Katrina,” said Flynn. “I was pretty scared … We stocked up on food, water, flashlights, and candles.”
Because of the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina, Flynn said she thinks officials and residents were better prepared for the oncoming storm. With improved levees and because the storm was smaller and geographically centered outside the urban area, the city fared vastly better than it did in Katrina.
“I feel that everyone just learned a lot from Katrina, and we were much more prepared,” Flynn said. “The damage was much less. Everything turned out better than expected.”
The main concern for Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal is getting power back to the area. At least half a million households and businesses were without power in Louisiana on Wednesday, according to New Orleans’ newspaper, The Times-Picayune online. Over 11,000 crewmen are working to bring back power to Louisiana, but officials still say it could take up to a month.
Because of the lack of power in Louisiana, some Pepperdine students on campus are finding it hard to communicate with their families.
“I can’t know exactly what’s going on, because I can’t communicate [with my family],” said junior Becky Ewing from New Roads, La.
President George W. Bush visited the area with Jindal on Wednesday. Bush said he would authorize the release of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to help cope with fuel shortages, according to The Times-Picayune.
The president also declared over half of the state’s parishes as federal disaster areas. This status allows the residents of these areas to be eligible for federal aid.
Two million people were evacuated from New Orleans. As of Wednesday, Gustav caused nine storm-related deaths in the United States, far less than the 1,600 deaths wrought by Katrina, according to USA Today.
Junior Brandon Gassaway, who is from New Orleans, commended Louisiana officials for their preparedness compared to their reaction to Hurricane Katrina.
“I feel that the government, on all levels, did a much better job all around than three years ago,” Gassaway said. “A lot of people that couldn’t leave before — it was made available to them [this time], and obviously the levees held up.”
Gassaway, whose house was under about eight feet of water after Hurricane Katrina, said New Orleans just got lucky that Hurricane Gustav was not a direct hit.
09-04-2008