Kinesiology junior Connie Stokes slowly coasted through the waters flooding State Street on Sunday night while en route to a friend’s house.
“I thought my car was going to go under,” Stokes said.
After enduring the nightmare that the storm left on the streets near LSU’s campus, Stokes woke up and trudged in her rain boots from Campus Crossings to class Monday morning.
Stokes, along with many other LSU students, said she thought classes would be cancelled Monday because of the local record-breaking 2.12 inches of rainfall the previous evening, brought on by the remnants of Hurricane Patricia.
LSU Media Relations confirmed around 8 p.m. classes and events would go on as scheduled, but the Emergency Operations Center closely monitored the situation.
BRPD closed 11 streets near campus around 8:30 p.m. Sunday because of heavy flooding, but Tiger Trails was up and running at 7:30 a.m. Monday, save a few route changes because of road closures.
“The only stops that [the buses] are not able to reach are the ones off Burbank-Ben Hur and Highland-Burbank by the Co-op Bookstore,” said a Tiger Trails representative.
Though students dreaded the commute to class, campus residents enjoyed an impromptu night of storm surfing, swimming and sledding. Students living in University House Baton Rouge, formerly The Standard at Baton Rouge, and Residential College One Complex embraced the weather, sliding down the Indian Mounds or swimming down the waist-high water on Alaska Street.
Students took to Twitter and launched a makeshift social media weather campaign, providing snapshots of different campus locations with memes.
But students weren’t the only ones to show up to school waterlogged.
Facility Services set out early Monday morning to identify affected buildings and parking lots, Assistant Director of Facility Services Tammy Millican said.
“Now that we’ve had some time to dry out, that’s what we’re out there doing — making sure the drains are cleaned out so that we don’t have any flooding, checking to see if we have anything that needs to be cleaned up,” Millican said. “We did have some minor roof leaks, and we also had basements that flooded.”
Millican said storm clean up is routine for Facility Services, who always addresses “the usual suspects,” like Pleasant, Francioni and Foster Halls which receive minimal damage during such strong storms.
LSU tweeted Monday morning, “water has subsided in commuter lots.” The nearly three inches of water standing in residential lots near RCC on Sunday evening drained before morning.
The constellation of popular restaurants lining East and West Chimes streets were unaffected by the power outages and panic caused by the storm. Representatives from The Chimes Restaurant, Chipotle Mexican Grill, Highland Coffees and Raising Cane’s said working hours were smooth-sailing as business operated as usual.
While restaurants remained busy, delivery services such as those provided by Tapingo were temporarily halted.
Criminology junior Roy Eberlan was working his late night shift as a Pita Pit delivery driver when the storm hit. He said the only places he was able to deliver to were on campus.
Eberlan said the area around Tiger Manor Apartments was “completely flooded” so he could not deliver. Despite the complications, he said he managed to deliver all of his orders.
“It’s my job,” Eberlan said.
According to a National Weather Service map, Baton Rouge can expect scattered showers until Tuesday . The seven-day forecast projected a 50 percent chance of rain on Monday, which falls to 40 percent during the evening.
The forecast also calls for thunderstorms throughout the weekend.
Caitie Burkes, Carrie Grace Henderson and William Taylor Potter contributed to this report.

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