While Hurricane Gustav brought record-breaking winds and rains to Baton Rouge, fall finals came with a more pleasant surprise — a University blanketed in white snow, just in time for the Christmas season. The pristine snow that covered the University left no trace of its presence, but the effects of Hurricane Gustav and March 26’s severe weather left lasting impressions throughout the campus. Estimates made at the close of the fall 2008 semester put the cost of University property damage from Gustav at just more than $10 million. The early morning storms that smacked the community on March 26 are anticipated to cost the University more than $3.8 million, according to a damage report released in April by the Office of Facility Resources.The Office of Facility Resources’ Major Damage Report deemed the Audubon Sugar Factory, the chancellor’s residence, Football Operations Center, football indoor practice facility, the Life Sciences Building, Military Science-Aerospace Studies Building, Jesse Coates or the New Chemical Engineering Building, Poultry Science, soccer field, LSU System Building and the University Student Recreation Complex basketball courts as the facilities sustaining damages in March. The nearly $3.9 million price tag includes an estimated $300,000 to install a copper roof for the chancellor’s residence and more than $1.4 million for roof repairs to the football indoor practice facility.The damages will be covered by state insurance, according to Paul Favaloro, Office of Facility Resources director. Notes on the report indicate repairs to the roofs of Jesse Coates and the System Building are covered by the claim submitted after Gustav while roof repairs to Life Sciences are covered by state funding.Of the buildings that sustained damage in Gustav, the Office of Communications & University Relations and the LSU Press Building have both received roof repairs, Favaloro said. LSU Press should be ready for operations at the end of June while University Relations will follow in October after both buildings receive repairs to their interiors.Repairs on other buildings, including the New Music Building and the International Cultural Center, are either in the bidding process or moving forth with construction, Favaloro said. The report listed an additional $30,000 to clean damaged trees, hanging debris removal and other general cleanup.”It was less monetary damage caused by this storm than it was from Gustav,” Favaloro said. “It was not as extensive.”In the last 17 years, Hurricane Andrew in 1992, Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Hurricane Gustav in 2008 and the storm March 26 have been the worst to hit the campus, Favaloro said.One month before the end of the 2008 Atlantic hurricane season, meteorologists deemed Hurricane Gustav the worst storm to hit Baton Rouge in at least 50 years.Gustav made landfall Sept. 1 and brought sustained winds of 61 mph and peak wind gusts of 91 mph, according to observations taken by the National Weather Service at the Baton Rouge Metropolitan Airport.The University lost about 230 trees after Gustav, and another 100 sustained damage. Nearly 100 trees were replanted as of March, including a mature live-oak tree and two small live oaks, according to Fred Fellner, Facility Services assistant director.Despite overnight snowfall and other school closures in the Baton Rouge area in December, final exams still took place as scheduled. Barry Keim, state climatologist, said the snowfall in Baton Rouge is a “20 or 30 year event.””It’s obviously just the right atmospheric conditions that have all come together to produce snow, and it doesn’t happen often in this neck of the woods,” Keim said. “We have just the right set up with temperatures cold enough.”Jay Grymes, University climatologist, said an upper-level storm system moved along Louisiana’s coast — from Lake Charles to New Orleans — rather than following the anticipated route from Lake Charles to Jackson, Miss. The unpredicted route left Baton Rouge on the north — or coldest — side of the system, which lead to snowfall rather than a mixture of sleet and snow.The unusual weather brought during the 2008-2009 academic year something Favaloro said the University had not experienced in one academic year in his entire 17 years here.”It’s unusual for a storm of either [Hurricane] Gustav or this storm’s caliber to come through,” Favaloro said. “Much less in one fiscal year.”——Contact Lindsey Meaux at [email protected]