Amy Cammarata, microbiology junior, spent a week living in a closet during Hurricane Gustav.Students evacuated to numerous locations during the storm — including places as close as the greater Baton Rouge area, Lafayette, Metairie and Mandeville and as far as Florida and Alabama.Cammarata evacuated with her family to Mandeville to her grandmother’s home in a retirement community, assuming the retirement community would be among the first in the area to have power restored.She wound up living in a two-bedroom home with her family of 12.”I slept in a closet,” Cammarata said. Jeanne Lyons, English sophomore, evacuated to Destin, Fla., to stay with a friend. The drive, normally a six-hour trip, took 10 hours. “I was hoping to get a vacation in,” Lyons said. She was met with numerous tornado watches and poor weather conditions, likely from Gustav’s winds, depriving her of the beach vacation she wished for.Kelsey Garvey, undeclared freshman, also evacuated to Destin in hopes of fun in the sun.”I went shopping and tanned,” Garvey said. “It’s better than going to class.”Ryan Tortorich, civil engineering freshman, evacuated to Greenville, Ala. to stay with his grandparents in a camper.The drive took the normal seven hours.”Since we waited until the last minute, there wasn’t a whole lot of traffic,” Tortorich said of his Sunday evening departure.Allie DeLee, mass communication freshman, left Baton Rouge with the intention of spending her long weekend with her family in Texarkana, Ark.”I had already planned to go home for the weekend,” DeLee said. “So I had like three days of clothes for the week.”DeLee said she worked at her old high school job to make extra money during the week of canceled classes.Anne Zavala, art history sophomore, initially evacuated to New Orleans. She then evacuated to Biloxi, Miss. with her family.The drive, normally two hours, took four.”Traffic was really bad coming out of New Orleans,” Zavala said. “As soon as you got out of Louisiana, it got better.”Chris Seemann, mass communication freshman, evacuated to Metairie. Then he traveled from Metairie back to Baton Rouge in search of safety.Dexter Steele, horticulture freshman, evacuated to Bunkie. He said the drive, normally a one-hour drive, took twice as long as usual.He said Bunkie, a small town of about 4,500 people, was abnormally busy and filled with evacuees. But it had power back two days after Gustav.Some students stayed in Baton Rouge and braved Gustav only to flee the heat the next day.Camerron Kimble, graphic design sophomore, left for Ethel to escape life without electricity Tuesday.”I knew that my parents had a generator, so I just ended up going over there,” she said.Abbye Baskin, biology freshman, left Tuesday to escape the weather, life without electricity and to spend time with family. She went to Duncan, Okla.She said she encountered little traffic traveling and Gustav brought cold weather to the area.–—Contact Lindsey Meaux at [email protected]