Hundreds of Tulane University students were forced to evacuate just hours after move-in day on Aug. 27, 2005. As Hurricane Katrina closed in, students dispersed to universities across the country.

“Welcome to Tulane University,” President Emeritus Scott Cowen said in his 2005 convocation speech. “We were formed in 1834. We’re a fabulous place, we’re delighted to have you here, and we’re so delighted to have you here that we have to send you home for four days.” 

An evacuation expected to last less than a week instead dragged on for months. In the spring, more than 10% of students chose not to return to Tulane, still reeling from Katrina’s destruction.

Tulane empties ahead of storm

“It was just another hurricane,” Kate Nesselt, former Tulane Hullabaloo editor-in-chief, said about forecasts of the storm. “I thought I was going to be back on campus within a number of days.” 

After securing the newspaper’s computer servers in a pickup truck headed for Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Nesselt prepared for a short evacuation. She drove to Houston with a bathing suit, a marketing textbook and “not much else.”

The day after move-in, former Gov. Kathleen Blanco announced a mandatory evacuation of New Orleans, giving residents less than 24 hours to leave the city before the first levee breach. 

“I barely unpacked for the semester,” Drew Dickson, class of 2008, said. “I got in my car and drove home.” 

By the evening, 12 busloads of Tulane evacuees reached Jackson State University, where they spent days sleeping on the gym floor without power or running water. 

At least 150,000 people remained in New Orleans during Katrina — most without a choice. At 4:30 a.m., floodwaters began pouring through breached levees. Within 48 hours, 80% of the city was underwater.

For weeks, the nation watched images of residents stranded on rooftops, bridges and in evacuation centers. At least 1,400 people died in the storm and its aftermath. 

“That was a real eye-opening thing for me,” Erin Guidry, class of 2006, said. “People die, and no one really cares. People are going to come back and build Airbnbs on top of their graves.”

‘Everything was dark’ 

Three days after Katrina made landfall, Tulane cancelled classes for the fall semester.

The American Council on Education urged schools to accept Tulane students as visitors, waive additional tuition for those who had already paid, and, for those who hadn’t, charge Tulane’s rate and forward the funds to the university.

Despite the ACE’s guidance, students such as Guidry paid twice for attending another university for the fall semester after paying for Tulane. 

“All of a sudden it’s like [my] entire life flipped on its head,” Guidry said. “I would have crawled over a bed of glass to get home at that point.” 

In mid-November, Tulane granted students limited access to campus to collect their belongings. 

“Everything was dark — no streetlights, no nothing,” Dickson said. “It was like being in the middle of nowhere, but you were in the middle of a city.” 

“We drove around the city in silence, just totally shocked at what we were seeing,” Nesselt said. “It was really, really horrific.” 

When 88% of the student body returned in the spring, campus was anything but normal. 

With many dorms uninhabitable, Tulane leased an Israeli-owned cruise ship docked at the Port of New Orleans for students to stay in. At $1,100 a month, living on the ship included meals and daily transport to campus. 

Those who chose to return to New Orleans lacked basics such as grocery stores, traffic lights and cellphone service.

“Nothing was open except for an Arby’s,” Dickson said. “They had buns and hamburger patties, and there was a line stretching around the building.” 

Closures, cuts, controversy 

Tulane’s return to normalcy came with controversy as the university navigated a budget cut by nearly one-third.

In December 2005, Cowen announced the cancellation of five undergraduate programs, including civil and environmental engineering, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering and computer science. 

That same month, the university laid off about 230 faculty members and eliminated men’s track, men’s and women’s tennis, men’s and women’s golf, women’s swimming, women’s soccer and men’s cross-country. 

The next year in 2006, Tulane closed Newcomb College, its all-women’s institution, and created the undergraduate Newcomb-Tulane College. Students and alumnae challenged the move, alleging the merger violated the wishes of Josephine Louise Newcomb, the donor whose will established the all-women’s Newcomb College. The challengers lost at the Louisiana Supreme Court and Newcomb-Tulane College was born.

“Whenever you’re having crises that massive, you have to break some eggs,” Dickson said. “I think Scott Cowen … wasn’t afraid of breaking eggs.” 

Alongside the cuts, Tulane introduced new priorities. Its post-Katrina renewal plan established a public service requirement for all undergraduates — a commitment that today translates into about 450,000 hours of student service to the New Orleans community each year.

“My biggest lesson from Katrina is that a lot of people are extractive when it comes to how they experience New Orleans,” Guidry said. “We need a lot more people giving back. You don’t get to just come and experience the city and flit away, you make an impact on it.”