Caribbean Colleges, Veterans at Dodging Hurricanes, Endorse Planning for the 'Worst-Case Scenario'

By MIKE CEASER

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The medical school was flooded, the community was in shambles, and an evacuation was under way. The scene was not New Orleans in September 2005, but Grand Cayman in September 2004, reeling from a battering by Hurricane Ivan.

Ivan, which varied in strength from Category 3 to Category 5, the highest on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale, cut a trail across the Caribbean, devastating the islands of Grenada and Grand Cayman, killing 40 people, and leaving most residents homeless. The storm also shut down the islands' universities and forced their medical schools, which serve mostly students from North America, to move everything, including books, computers, and cadavers, and to resume classes in the United States.

In contrast to the severe flooding Katrina wreaked on some New Orleans universities, Ivan left St. George's University, on Grenada, and St. Matthew's, on Grand Cayman, largely intact. However, one wall and the floor of the main building at St. Matthew's were blown out, flooding the ground floor and destroying computers and other information-technology equipment, said Bryce Averitte, the university's business manager, who vows to over-prepare for the next hurricane.

"I thought my IT guy was being pretty ridiculous putting all the servers on desks," he recalled. "It turned out that was not high enough."

Most critically, Ivan heavily damaged much of the islands' infrastructure and housing, cutting off electricity and water and ripping off roofs.

At St. George's, many homeless students crowded into the campus's dormitories, modern structures that had stood up well. Grenada's airport was damaged, with its lights out and its control tower felled, so U.S. military planes evacuated all the students, except for Grenada residents, to neighboring islands. University administrators scrambled to find replacement facilities. Fortunately, St. George's already had many contacts with Barry University, a private college in Miami Shores, Fla.

Pulling Together

"They wanted to help us, and -- talk about dumb luck -- they had an empty building," said Bernard Ferguson, director of governmental and external affairs at St. George's. "We found that other schools will work with you. You're somewhat in competition, but people will pull together in a disaster."

St. George's relocated its courses -- and more than 1,000 people, including students, teachers, and administrators -- to Barry and to the New York College of Osteopathic Medicine, on Long Island. For student lodgings in Florida, the university found a hotel that was under renovation. Two weeks after the hurricane struck, classes had resumed. (The university's veterinary students were relocated to North Carolina State University, Kansas State University's College of Veterinary Medicine, and Purdue University's College of Veterinary Medicine.)

But amid the rushed relocation, St. George's administrators neglected to obtain clearance from Florida's Commission for Independent Education. "Every state has its own education agency," Mr. Ferguson said. "You can't just walk in and start to teach. We had to apologize and explain that it was such a disaster."

For St. Matthew's, the task was eased by the availability of unused space at the university's campus in Windham, Me., where fourth- and fifth-year students take courses. Twelve days after Ivan hit, 400 basic-sciences students had resumed classes there, Mr. Averitte said.

Moving classes to the United States was complicated because some students and faculty members were not U.S. citizens and many had pets they would not leave behind.

But in light of the disaster, immigration officials cut through the red tape, Mr. Averitte said. The only exception was a professor from Pakistan who was refused admittance to the United States and "essentially lost her job," he said.

In January, St. George's resumed classes in Grenada. St. Matthew's restarted classes on Grand Cayman in May. Administrators at both universities say the storms frightened away few students.

But both institutions have learned that a hurricane's devastation is no guarantee against a return visit. St. Matthew's had been hit by Hurricane Keith in 2000, when its main campus was located in Belize. St. George's got hit again this year by the less-powerful Hurricane Emily, which struck during summer vacation.

Calum Macpherson, dean of graduate studies and director of research at St. George's, worries that if climate change causes hurricanes to hit more fiercely, as many scientists predict they will, it will be difficult to attract students to Caribbean colleges.

Mr. Averitte said Ivan did leave behind "injured psyches," which have not completely healed. When a hurricane threatened Grand Cayman early this year, "there was some panic," he said. The storm missed the island.

A psychologist at St. George's, Terry Ruthrauff, said he has seen no cases of post-traumatic stress disorder. He suggested that the rapid evacuation after the storm had helped avoid stresses, since students missed its difficult aftermath. Both universities have considered the possibility of evacuating students when future hurricanes threaten, but the unpredictability of hurricanes' paths and an evacuation's expense complicate that option.

Losing Students

For colleges serving local residents, hurricane recovery is even more difficult. The institutions cannot pull up roots and escape because the students and their families are dependent on the local economy. The International College of the Cayman Islands, a business college on Grand Cayman, was flooded during Ivan, forcing it to relocate temporarily into a Roman Catholic high school.

Vernett Bodden, the college's treasurer, said enrollment had dropped by about half of its previous 250 students because so many people were out of work or had left the island. But the college is rebuilding, and she expressed confidence it would recover.

"We've come a long way in one year," she said.

In the wake of the hurricane, universities are dealing with higher insurance costs -- about 30 percent in the case of St. George's -- and are trying to hurricane-proof their facilities. St. George's, which suffered only light damage on the campus, is attaching roof tiles more firmly in hopes that they won't blow off again. St. Matthew's, which is occupying a rented building, plans to construct a stronger building. Mr. Averitte said he expected the new building would suffer only about 5 percent of the damage that befell the old one. The new building's first floor will contain only light, easily movable equipment, he said.

St. Matthew's is also building additional housing on the campus, and Mr. Averitte said he expected that after another Ivan-type storm the university would be able to resume classes almost immediately.

"Plan for the worst-case scenario," he wrote in an e-mail message. "You will look like a champ having made all of the right preparations, saving thousands of dollars in down time, and replacement supply cost."

• U.S. Universities Absorb Students From Hurricane-Battered Caribbean Institutions (10/15/2004)