LSU System officials said it will cost around $3.5 billion to repair hurricane damages to System buildings in New Orleans, but vow that the buildings will be repaired.
In a press conference Thursday, LSU Health Center and University of New Orleans officials said the universities will act as catalysts to rebuild the city. In the meantime, the schools will hold classes in Baton Rouge and immediately start to assess damages and begin repairs in New Orleans.
UNO Chancellor Tim Ryan said the Lake Front campus, which suffered flooding on one-third of the campus, and the health centers downtown will be critical to the rebuilding of the city.
“We want the University to be a catalyst in restoring the city,” he said. “[The city] can’t survive without a medical school and public university.”
Dr. Larry Hollier, dean of medicine at the Health Science Center, said courses will be held in various Baton Rouge facilities beginning Sept. 26, and they are planning ways to house students and faculty.
Hollier said the Health Center has begun to organize mobile homes to use as housing and is attempting to get a cruise ship to port on the river that could house students.
Ryan said repairs will begin today on a UNO building in Jefferson Parish located on Causeway Boulevard.
Ryan said UNO will hold an abbreviated fall semester at the Jefferson Parish facility and will begin a regular spring semester in January.
He said he suspects that Jefferson Parish will have full service in about three weeks and they will offer classes for students that have not enrolled elsewhere.
Students who are attending other institutes will return to the Lake Front campus in January for a full spring semester. Ryan said there is a possibility for a condensed semester in December at the Lake Front campus.
Bill Silvia, vice president of the LSU System, said the damage estimate is very preliminary and that officials have not been able to access all of the facilities. Two-thirds of the damages were to System hospitals.
Silvia said that the Federal Emergency Management Agency will fund some of the repairs and that he anticipates some congressional appropriation, but repairs will begin prior to the confirmation of funding.
“We’re optimistic those needs will be met,” he said.
Don Smithburg, chief executive officer of Health Care Services Division, said the system has six of the nine hospitals in the state currently operating and they hope to have the facilities in Bogalusa, Louisiana running within the next few days.
He said the two facilities in New Orleans have been severely damaged, but the employees are still working in the Baton Rouge area and trying to treat patients who have been displaced.
Smithburg said System doctors are still treating patients stuck in the city.
“They are going to stay and continue to serve as long as there are people to serve,” he said.
The Ag Center has also begun to assess damage to agriculture in the state.
Paul Coreil, vice chancellor of the Ag Center, said the state suffered more than $1 billion in damages to agriculture.
Coreil said the hardest-hit industries were forestry and fishing and that the effects could last for years.
He said it is possible that some crops, such as the citrus crop, could be destroyed permanently.
Contact Ginger Gibson at [email protected]