Devastated But Not Defeated
Hurricane Katrina ravages New Orleans, decimating many southern colleges and universities, but the higher education community steps up to provide students and faculty shelter from the storm.
By Scott Dyer
BATON ROUGE, La.
Nineteen-year-old Hal Boutte was one of the lucky ones. Boutte fled New Orleans only a few hours before Hurricane Katrina devastated the city, unlike some 400 other students at Xavier University of Louisiana, who found themselves trapped on the campus for several days.
New Orleans officials estimated that nearly 80 percent of the city suffered flooding as a result of the hurricane that experts are calling the most devastating natural catastrophe in the history of the United States.
Boutte, who is studying chemistry and biochemistry at Xavier, says e-mails and phone calls from his fellow students indicated that some 400 were stranded in Xavier dorms when the hurricane struck the city on Aug. 29.
“A lot of the students who were stranded were from Chicago, as well as places like Texas, Washington and the Eastern seaboard,” he says.
He has kept in contact with the stranded Xavier students, who have since been taken to Grambling State University and Southern University at Baton Rouge.
