Harvard Provisions For ‘Rita’ Go Unused

In anticipation of Hurricane Rita, Harvard College had prepared to provide students with disaster support services, including counseling—but University officials said they are relieved when the services went unused.

Hurricane Rita crashed into the coast bordering Lousiana and Texas on Saturday, causing considerably less damage than Hurricane Katrina, which struck Louisiana and Mississippi on Aug. 29. Although the estimated damage of Hurricane Rita is $4.5 billion, the death toll is about 10 people, much less than that of Hurricane Katrina, which totaled over 1,000.

To prepare for Rita, Assistant Dean of the College Jay Ellison sent the Allston Burr Senior Tutors a list of 192 students whose families are from the coastal areas of Texas and Louisiana.

“All the houses contacted the students somehow, and invited them to come speak to somebody,” said Ellison, who is also the director of the College’s Emergency Management Team. “We made sure that we were ready to go if there was a problem, and that the students knew what support was available to them.”

Ellison wrote in an e-mail that the members of the emergency management team offered support services to the Houses and to the Freshman Dean’s Office (FDO).

“I do feel that we did all we could in the events leading up the hurricane’s landfall,” Ellison wrote. “All of the Houses were then able to provide services locally in their community and directly to students as needed, knowing that extra services were available, and I believe that the houses and FDO did a great job communicating with their students.”

Perhaps partly due to the low death toll, even students from the most affected areas did not seek the services, said Co-Master of Winthrop House Stephen P. Rosen.

Jehee Choi ’07, of Beaumont, Texas, said she did not need any counseling services because the property damage her house suffered was not as severe as the loss of life experienced by others.

“I heard our house’s fence is down, but I’m thankful it didn’t get hit anymore than it did,” she said, “I heard the damage in Beaumont is really severe, but I think everybody got out of this alive.”

Rosen said he identified about a dozen students in Winthrop House who could have been affected by Hurricane Rita, and prepared for the worst.

“We set up an crisis response center in the common room,” he said. “We had emergency health care providers on call.”

But Rosen said he was relieved when no students showed up for emergency counseling.

“Rita turned out to be much less of a disaster, and it was pretty much not a big problem, thank god,” he said.

Ralph F. Paone Jr. ’09, from Galveston, Texas, was pleasantly surprised by Harvard’s concern for his family, who had evacuated to Houston.

“My proctor actually was the first person to make sure my family was okay,” Paone said. “She made sure everything was okay, and asked me if I needed anybody to talk about it. She was really comforting.”

Rosen said he was happy that Harvard had the resources to handle a potential disaster.

“I think we were prepared for this storm and we were prepared (and are prepared) to assist our students,” Ellison wrote.