Moon Latham, a psychology junior, skipped classes Friday to pack their bags, herd their three cats and evacuate with their sister and sister-in-law to Fairfield, Texas in a last-minute effort to escape Hurricane Ida.
It took them nine hours to travel, including the hour it took to find gas.
After the hurricane’s passage Sunday, Latham couldn’t get in touch with family in New Roads until Monday afternoon. They still don’t know if their home on Jennifer Jean Drive has power or if the nearby trees catapulted into the roof – and they won’t find out until they can return to Baton Rouge.
Even still, Latham received an email in the hours leading up to Hurricane Ida’s landfall that they’d still have a quiz due Tuesday, despite school cancellations.
“I shouldn’t be worrying about homework assignments or missing class or doing readings whenever my house could be destroyed, when I could have lost everything and I don’t even know yet,” Latham said. “I should be worried about my safety, my family’s safety and my community’s safety.”
LSU’s campus post-Ida reflected a much different storm than other parts of Baton Rouge: roads covered in leaves and debris, a few branches in parking lots and a section of fallen metal roofing crumpled up outside the LSU School of Music appeared to be the extent of damage after the hurricane veered toward Hammond Sunday night.
University spokesman Ernie Ballard confirmed Monday afternoon that damage was minimal to campus, and that staff are working “nonstop” to clean up campus. Ballard said that some parts of campus lost power during the storm as well.
“Our staff worked diligently before the storm to prepare,” Ballard said, “and began working immediately after the storm passed to assess damage.”
Baton Rouge still took a hit though, as over 120,000 Entergy customers across the Parish lost power. The utility company said on Twitter it could take days to assess damages and begin repairs, and that it has gathered more than 20,000 workers to repair power statewide.
Over 800,000 lost power across the state, including the entire city of New Orleans, which saw nearly 14 inches of rain Sunday.
Just because campus sustained less damage than expected doesn’t mean those that evacuated should return, LSU President William Tate said in a video. He advised students “not to rush back to campus” now that the hurricane has passed so that the campus can be cleared of debris.
“I want to offer our sincere thoughts and prayers to those that have been impacted by this hurricane,” Tate said in the video. “Please know that we will be supportive of communities across the state of Louisiana as we prepare to go forward.”
Though many students who evacuated, including Latham, still aren’t able to return to Baton Rouge due to road closures on major interstates across Louisiana. As of now, it’s unclear exactly when students will need to return to campus, though the university extended their closure of campus through Wednesday.
Their announcement was met with responses on social media asking them to close for the whole week so students have more time to prepare to return. Ballard said more updates will be coming in Tuesday afternoon for any continued closures.
“They should just close for the entire week, until Labor Day at least,” Latham said. “A lot of (students) are out of state, the roads are blocked, they might have just lost everything.”
For others, school has been low priority as they come to terms with Ida’s decimation in their hometowns–marketing senior Maci Hebert evacuated to Pineville Saturday, but had to leave her father, aunt and elderly grandparents in Bourg, located just 10 miles outside of Houma.
Hebert lost communication with them Sunday night, but saw reports on the news of the catastrophic damages to homes, churches and gas stations to the area. As of Tuesday morning, she has heard from most of her family, with one losing their home and another sustaining immense damage to their roof.
Hebert still hasn’t heard back from her grandparents, who are in their 70s.
“(Bourg is) essentially leveled,” Hebert said. “I have a lot of friends who are going to be homeless when we get back. It’s going to be years before Bourg is back — if it ever really is. The consensus between some of us is that it’s probably the beginning of the end for East Houma.”
She said if classes returned Thursday, she’d come to campus since Terrebonne Parish is unsure of when it’ll be safe for residents to return to their homes. She just hopes that the university will enforce any accommodations put in place to help students from Southeast Louisiana.
“I’ll get back to school when my family doesn’t need me anymore,” Hebert said. “They sent us an email saying we didn’t need to hurry back, and I’m taking that pretty seriously.”
Conditions didn’t deteriorate much for students inside residence halls on campus, according to freshmen Jess Robinson, a nursing major, and Myles Pulley, a computer science major.
Robinson felt afraid going into Sunday night—she was one of the only people who stayed in Herget Hall to wait out the storm. As a Pennsylvania native new to the campus, she didn’t have much of an option to leave. She feared the incoming forecasts, especially after almost everyone on her floor evacuated.
“I was really so nervous,” said Robinson. “Only 10 people stayed on my floor – everyone else left, which was crazy. I just felt alone.”
Robinson was lucky though; to her surprise, the building didn’t lose power, so she spent the night watching television.
“Honestly, I was like, ‘when is it supposed to start?’” she said. “It didn’t seem like it ever started here.”
Pulley had a different experience in his dorm, as the New Jersey native only had one person on his floor of Camellia Hall evacuate. Everyone played video games together as they rode out the storm until they lost power.
“I was so mad (to hear Herget had power),” Pulley said jokingly. “That was the one thing I was worried about: the power going out.”
Dining halls reopened at 10:30 a.m. Monday morning, and life on campus seemed somewhat normal, minus debris on the road and classes being canceled.
For students living off-campus, the coming weeks may prove to be a much larger obstacle than dealing with the hurricane itself as they wait for power to be restored or damages to be repaired.
“I have a lot of bigger fish to fry right now than maintaining the GPA to keep the major I’m in when there may be trees laying over my house and window or two blown in,” Latham said. “We won’t know if our house will be inhabitable. Then what? LSU is still going to have assignments due and still be in class no matter what?”
