One year ago this week, 320 student-refugees from Tulane University enrolled for a semester at Boston University, which was just one of the many colleges that opened its doors to those affected by hurricane Katrina.
Though most of those who stayed in Boston for a few months have since gone home, not everything has returned to normal for those students in New Orleans.
When it took in those students from Tulane, BU was ranked number one in a category no one could have predicted: refugee student population. As the flood water subsided along the Gulf Coast, it became clear that students at colleges in the New Orleans area would not be able to start their fall semester.
BU allowed the students to attend classes here and agreed to wave their tuition and fees. Out of any college or university in the country, BU had the highest number of students enrolled from Tulane.
“Boston University took in 320 students displaced from Tulane University due to hurricane Katrina,” BU spokesman Colin Riley said.
Kelsey Pember was one of those students who have since returned to Tulane.
“When I first got down [to New Orleans], we drove around,” she said. “When you would go into the other neighborhoods, it was so depressing. One house after the other was absolutely destroyed.”
Katrina crashed into the Gulf Coast last August as a category 4 storm. Few people could have predicted the devastating and far-reaching effects the storm would have. As the levees broke and flooded New Orleans’s lower 9th ward, the country watched helplessly as one of America’s oldest cities vanished beneath the water.
Since the storm, Pember has done community service work where the storm hit.
“You don’t really know what to say to [the residents],” the Tulane sophomore said. “They say, ‘I lost my house,’ and all you can say is you didn’t go to college for a few months. However, the task is tough because even if one person fixes up their house, every other house in their neighborhood is gone. It becomes difficult to return.”
Thousands of citizens were left to fend for themselves at places of supposed refuge, including the New Orleans Superdome and Convention Center. But even one year later, BU has once again become a safe haven for students who wish to escape the storm-ravaged city.