Stocked with ample food and water, the LSU volleyball team hunkered down in the PMAC locker room two years ago today.
“I mandated a time for every one of our players to be in that locker room,” said coach Fran Flory. “We became a little community and weathered the storm together.”
But Flory and her team had no idea what they would weather during the coming months, as emergency officials soon told them the PMAC would be converted to a make-shift hospital.
The team had one hour to remove all equipment and supplies as emergency officials commandeered the arena. Flory remembers hauling volleyballs and nets to the Athletic Administration building and stashing equipment at various apartments.
“We were completely homeless,” Flory said. “We couldn’t play at home, and we couldn’t practice at home.”
The LSU volleyball squad’s story is one of many illustrating Katrina’s effect on the Athletic Department. In the 2005-2006 academic year, the department lost approximately $2.1 million, the majority from revenue lost after moving the Arizona State University football game to Tempe, Ariz. The deficit would have been much larger without the approximate $1 million intake from the New Orleans Saints and Hornets games, said Mark Ewing, associate athletic director of business.
But even two years later, effects are still noticeable within the department’s operations. Senior Associate Athletic Director Herb Vincent said Katrina’s major impact is the high cost of construction. Baseball and softball stadium costs rose $7 million and $5 million, respectively.
“Those projects were on the drawing board prior to Katrina, and our projections have dramatically changed,” he said.
Ewing said both facilities are expected to be game-ready by early 2009. Ewing said the funding came from reworking a pre-Katrina $47 million package, in which $22 million was allotted for the baseball stadium, $10 million for the softball stadium and $15 million for a gift shop and a practice facility connected to the PMAC. Ewing said the gift shop and PMAC were dropped from the bundle to account for construction cost increases.
Ewing said he expects revenue bond selling, which would fund the gift shop and PMAC practice facility, to be up for discussion at October’s LSU Board of Supervisors meeting.
“Where it’s going to affect us is down the line, especially with the PMAC practice facility,” Ewing said. “It’s going to make that cost more. How much more? We won’t know until we put it out for bid, hopefully next January or February.”
Ewing said the facility is crucial because it would allow teams, such as Flory’s volleyball squad, to retain their facilities even if the PMAC becomes an emergency center. But if another emergency requires usage of the PMAC or Carl Maddox Field House, Ewing said the department will be better prepared to handle the after-effects.
Prior to Katrina, Ewing said the department had no written agreement for facilities usage and reimbursement.
“How many times do you make your track field into a helicopter pad?” he asked. “For the use of our facility, we didn’t really get anything. It’s not something like when they’re bringing people to your facility, where you can say, ‘How are we going to pay for this?’ We did it and expected payment at the end. At the end, they said, ‘Oh, you needed a contract.’ Now we’re prepared.”
The “contract” is in the form of two Memorandums of Understanding, an Aug. 27 agreement between the University and the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals and a June 29 agreement between the University and the Louisiana Department of Social Services. Both are in effect until May 31, 2008.
The MOUs provide instructions and reimbursement guidelines in the case University facilities are once again used for emergency purposes. The PMAC usage fee is $3,500 per day, while the arena floor of the Maddox Field House would cost $3,700 per day.
But the Athletic Department is set to receive $100,000 in compensation for a new PMAC sub-floor installed this summer.
“The reason they didn’t give us more is because it was a lot of years of wear-and-tear already,” Ewing said. “We would have needed to replace it eventually anyway, but it got really bad after [Katrina].”
Gary Durham, Office of Risk management executive director, said FEMA officials examined the PMAC sub-floor about eight months ago.
“They came in with a crew, inspected it and measured it,” he said.
Durham said the already-approved payment is expected within the next three to six months.
And two years removed from its Katrina experience, the LSU volleyball squad was fittingly the first to test out the new PMAC floor. Flory said the 2005 team, which finished 21-8 during the tumultuous Katrina season, showed its resiliency during the most stressful circumstances.
“We said, ‘This is not going to be an excuse. This season is still going to go in the record books. Your name is still going to be associated with whatever happens,'” Flory said. “When people look back on that year, there’s not an asterisk with Katrina.”
—-Contact Amy Brittain at [email protected]