Five years ago Sunday, Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast, putting the city of New Orleans underwater and driving thousands of citizens to Baton Rouge for shelter.
 
Many of them came to the University, where a field hospital soon rose out of the chaos. By the end of the ordeal, the campus had transformed into an 800-bed field hospital, then the largest in national history. About 1,700 medical personnel from across the country treated more than 6,000 patients and triaged more than 15,000, according to “LSU in The Eye of the Storm,” a book published about the experience.
 
The morning after the hurricane, students and administrators awoke to a campus that was largely unscathed. Eric Monday, who was then associate vice chancellor for finance and administrative services, and D’Ann Morris , who was then assistant to then-Chancellor Sean O’Keefe, volunteered to serve breakfast in the dining hall. The workers that normally served the food could not make it on to campus because the public transportation they used to get to work was out of commission.
 
All told, Baton Rouge and LSU had suffered little damage from the storm. But, 80 miles away, New Orleans was drowning, and a flood of refugees inundated the Unviersity campus.
 
Morris said she first grappled with the scope of the emergency the University faced when the Chancellor’s office started hearing rumors of “a lack of coordination” in the PMAC. O’Keefe told her to go take stock of the situation.
“When I got there to observe, I noticed that ‘lack of coordination’ was an understatement,” Morris said wryly.
 
Morris said the scene inside was chaos — thousands of refugees were milling around at random, indistinguishable from the scattered volunteers.
“It was total chaos,” she said. “There were people everywhere.”
 
Morris reported the chaos back to O’Keefe, who told her to “go down and take care of it.”
 
Both administrators said O’Keefe’s leadership was invaluable during the
crisis.
 
“Sean O’Keefe had the ability to manage crises very well,” Monday said.
Monday said O’Keefe made the decision to turn campus into a medical facility. While the University had a longstanding contract with the government for operating as a special needs shelter, O’Keefe decided the University could well serve a larger purpose.
 
That vision quickly began to take shape as more victims poured in — as did volunteers.
 
“The greatest story is our students,” Monday said. “In all, about 2,500 volunteers showed up to help, many of them students.
 
At first, the flood of volunteers caused problems.
 
“They were all there to be helpful, but they were all in the way,” Morris said. “There was no way to tell who was a volunteer and who was a patient.”
 
Morris and her team immediately began to separate volunteers from evacuees, dividing them into categories based on the tasks necessary to care for the people in the PMAC. Students ferried equipment and supplies, gave food and water to survivors and assisted with medical care.
 
Morris said the volunteers worked tirelessly throughout the disaster.
“It was hard to send them home,” she said.
 
From the initial chaos, something resembling order began to take shape.
 
The PMAC became the “emergency room,” where patients requiring urgent care were treated, while the Carl Maddox Field House became the “in-patient” care facility.
 
Student volunteers wheeled stabilized patients from the PMAC to the Maddox Field House past Bernie Moore Track Stadium, where helicopters were landing — ferrying evacuees to and critical patients from campus.
 
But Morris said the situation was far from perfect. Arguments over who had authority arose because there were multiple agencies and officials working the facilities.
 
At one point, Morris noticed there was a lack of coordination between the two facilities — doctors in the Maddox Field House were short on gauze and bandages, supplies the PMAC had in abundance.
 
Those supplies had only been authorized for the PMAC — when Morris tried to have them transferred, an official told her “we don’t have to listen to you.”
Morris said she snapped back at him.
 
“Actually, yes you do. You’re at LSU. You’re in our house,” she said.
 
Morris’ most vivid memory is of Tyrese, a four-year old boy among a group of children who had been separated from their parents. Morris slipped into the weight room of the Maddox Field House, where the Athletic Department had made room for the children, when Tyrese hugged her.
 
“Ms. D’Ann — are you going to find my mommy? Because I don’t think I can live here forever,” he told her.
 
“I walked out and had a complete meltdown,” Morris said.
 
Morris received a call that night saying the boy’s parents had been found. After confirming the mother’s identity, Morris found a pilot willing to fly the boy anywhere in the country — for an LSU baseball cap.
 
“It was one amazing story after another,” she said.
 
Monday said the disaster prepared LSU for future catastrophes and provided a model for how large organizations can deal with catastrophes.
 
The Emergency Operations Center is the campus unit that prepares campus for emergencies. Monday said the EOC and the rest of campus were well-prepared for Hurricane Gustav, which caused more direct damage to the University, because of the lessons learned during Katrina.
 
“We wouldn’t have an EOC if not for Katrina,” Monday said.
 
Of the lessons learned, perhaps none are more important than cooperation.
 
“You see and you think LSU is a community,” said Monday, who attended the University as an undergraduate. “Few times in your life do you get to sense it in such a large way.”
 
 
 
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Contact Matthew Albright at [email protected]