While debate continues regarding the federal government’s response to Hurricane Katrina, it can be said that Louisiana State University was preparing before the storm hit-after all, LSU researchers had warned earlier that the 2004 hurricane season could be historic.
LSU in the Eye of the Storm: A University Model for Disaster Response is a primer that any institution can emulate.
While the mood on the LSU campus on the days before the storm was one of “calm concern,” write the book’s authors, a shelter on campus for evacuees from assisted-living facilities had already been planned. Two days before the storm, LSU’s police and its Office of Public Affairs met to warn the public, and Monday classes were canceled as a routine precaution.
While the book mentions that no one was prepared for the scope of Katrina, it offers a clear history of how one institution was able to help with human and animal rescue efforts, provide medical care, house evacuees, continue media coverage and reopen.
To order the book, e-mail a request to the LSU Office of Public Affairs (urelat1@lsu.edu) and include a name, telephone number and e-mail address in your request.
