hello i'm supposed to be a freshman enrolled in Tulane's architecture program. Becase of Hurricane Katrina i most likely will not be able to attend Tulane any time in the near future. If you could suggest some comperable schools with a 5 year program that would be greatly appreciated. I'm thinking Rice and Notre Dame so far.
dude, have you talked to Tulane about this? I know people at Tulane school of arch, and the last time I talked with them they mentioned that the school was closed until Sept. 7th, but didn't sound concerned about what would happen after then. If Tulane is any decent sort of school, they'll find a way to take care of you.
Good luck, and I hope that you and your loved ones have no worse concerns than this brought about by Katrina.
Hmmmm. Tulane's web page, www.tulane.edu, is down. Guess they were hosting it on a local server.
I've never been there but a quick look on Google Earth shows that the University sits very close to water, is that the Mississippi? I dare say it's possible that a lot of buildings are damaged but perhaps you should check it out before trying to transfer.
It's just all unbelievable isn't it? So much damage....
as of august 29th (i think)80 percent of new orleans was flooded because the levies cracked. the fresh water line has cracked. the airport is flooded. this all could take weeks even months for new orleans to be safe to travel to let alone go to school. so it looks like i'm going to have to find a new school
It is hard to determine what will be required in the coming weeks and months to recover from the situation. They are saying it will take at least several weeks to just regain power and the city is still flooding. It is all very hard to believe. But I would hope that at the latest, Tulane will be up and running in a few months. But who knows?
The backup site doesn't seem to be working anymore so here is the latest entry from the site posted earlier today:
Current Status
August 30, 7:30 p.m.
Dear Friends of Tulane:
I know you are all concerned about conditions in New Orleans and at Tulane University, and have many questions about what is going to happen in the next few days, weeks and months.
Our first priority during this time is the safety of our faculty, staff and students. Thankfully, everyone associated with the university is safe, including those of us who remain at Tulane.
Our second priority is to secure our facilities. As expected, our facilities have been damaged; however, based on our preliminary assessments, the majority of the damage can be remediated in a reasonable period of time. The uptown campus is covered with debris from fallen trees and shrubs, making it almost impossible to drive or even walk on campus. We have no power in any of the buildings other than a few where we control the power source.
Our third priority is to develop a recovery plan. This task is impaired right now by the devastation of the city and its infrastructure, and deteriorating further due to the flooding we are now facing. In addition, we don’t know when our employees will be able to return to the city, much less to the university. Therefore, until conditions stabilize, it is impossible to do any longer term recovery planning. However, part of the responsibility of the senior leadership team in Jackson, MS is to begin the planning and they have done so.
As I suspect you all know, there is no contingency plan that could ever be developed to respond to what the area and the university are experiencing. However, all of us at the university are totally committed to doing whatever it takes to get the university operational as soon as possible. I hope you will be patient and understanding of our situation as we work our way through the complexities.
It is difficult to describe what this situation feels like for those involved. It is surreal and unfathomable; yet, there is light at the end of the tunnel. Our focus is on the light and not the darkness.
It's unlikely you're going to be able to enroll in any other school for the fall semester, isn't it?
Schools in and around NOLA are not expecting to open before December, but I'm confident Tulane will come up with a solution for you.
At the risk of sounding like a recruiting brochure -- While the city may have been a factor in your decision to attend Tulane, even after a hurricane and flooding, Rice and ND won't compare to TSA.
i've been so worried about the friends down there, i didn't even think about school starting soon. as ddot said, i'm confident that they'll come up with a solution, too - though it may be a little on-the-fly-seat-of-the-pants-etc.
could be a time of great opportunity, considering the amount of rebuilding and restoration of services that will be necessary.
-a way to look at a whole city and understand how it works (or doesn't).
-a chance for the city to pick and choose what is necessary and desirable in the rebuilding.
i hope the architecture school is able to take an active role in the process of recovery, as well as an observational one.
Steven, I think you're absolutely right. Disaster and opportunity often arrive together.
It might be interesting to see what types of disaster-relief and reconstruction opportunities are available. What a rare and rich way to learn about the people and place of a new city.
If you are worried about freinds or family in the area please check out
neworleans.craigslist.org
I just heard on the local station that the mayor estimates that no one will be allowed back into the city until approx 16 weeks from now. Apparently the water is expected to rise for another 10 hours until is level with the lake. At that point all the pumps will fail and water will have to simply drain out into the canals.
this is maybe a little off topic,
but as a European I find it intriguing how stadiums in the U.S. become the SafeHavens for hurricane-victims.
First the Superdome in New Orleans, now the Astrodome in Houston, where people are evacuated to.
This is some kind of "multi-functionalism" of stadiums, that I was not aware of.
And what also disturbs me, is that if I try to imagine the critical situation inside the Superdome, what comes to my mind are the last scenes from the movie "Godzilla"...
maybe movie peolple are more into odd re-uses of stadiums than architects...
p.s. my best wishes are with all affected by this tragedy
Given what I've heard from a friend down there, I wouldn't expect any classes at Tulane this academic year.
The only flooding that this country has seen recently on this scale was in the spring of '97 on the ND/MN border where Grand Forks went underwater. Difference there was much smaller population and the water would receed on it's own, no pumping necessary. Still, a good percentage of the population up and left the city for good. I would guess New Orleans will see a population exodus of epic proportions.
Sorry to sound like a pessimist but my guess is that Tulane will do very little to help your situation aside from saying, wait. Remember that they have many enrolled students mid-way through their education to deal with in addition to the incoming students.
My advise is to start calling different colleges. Tell them your situation and they might make an exception and get you in this academic year. If that doesn't work, you might have to put college on hold for a year. My friend down there is leaving the city for good. Lost everything, moving home, starting over. At least be thankful that you didn't get caught in the middle of it all.
I think it is more appropriate to say that nothing has happened (naturally) to a major urban area of this kind.
Except for maybe the Northridge quake.
New Orleans has been flirting with this disaster for a long time now.
Ironically there was an article published in Harpers last Spring about this very event. The Author outlines in perfect detail what the city is going through now.
What really worries me is if Bengets (horrible murder of the French spelling) and Galatuars (again I am sorry for my horrible French) are OK- Both are cultural establishments dating back almost 100 years, I'd hate to see em' go.
I wonder if Jerde will do the replanning of the French Quarter now that it is destroyed...the thought of a Universal City Walk with strippers and booze for the under 21 set would be kind of interesting.
While Andrew caused billions in damage I think that Katrina's impact will be felt for a longer period of time and have a much more grievous effect on our economy. An entire city is basically being returned to the sea; as WonderK said, it is unprecedented.
I'm not talking about monetary value, even though yesterday they said that Katrina would well exceed the figures that Andrew produced. I'm talking about the fact that within a week, that storm has turned hundreds of miles of coastline into a swampland, where 2.3 million people had homes and now there is nothing and they can't even return to start rebuilding. Hurricane Andrew produced flooding, flattened homes, and people who stumbled around in shock for a few days before they returned to where their homes once sat to gather their things and find a new place to set up shop.
Katrina is producing refugees....thousands of them....that have to live in a 40-year-old stadium for probably months. The infrastructure has been rendered useless and a city that's hundreds of years old is now at the bottom of.....a lake.
I think there should be a serious discussion not how, but if we should rebuild.
The city will always have this possibility of devistation and destruction unless we were to alter the complete topography of the area. One must ask the question if it's worth the expense of rebuilding only to possibly rebuild again in the future. Mankind as always built cities in odd places. Venice comes to mind. I love these cities, but I cringe at what a rebuilt new orleans would be.
stick with the green wave. it's a great school,and those above are correct, it will give students a giant opportunity to work with the city and the rebuilding...you'll learn a shitload, so be patient, little grasshopper. tulane's been there for two centuries, it will continue to be. plus, notre dame sucks.
I wouldn't be at all surprised if the monetary damages end up far surpassing Andrew. The $10-25 billion figure has been thrown around a lot in the media since the storm was in progress. I heard those numbers mentioned well before the breaking of the levies in New Orleans, before the looting and fires started, and even before the widespread extent of the damage came to light as it has in the past two days.
As more facts come out, Andrew's geographic, economic, infrastructural, and humanitarian scope are looking more and more limited compared to this storm. Just the costs of keeping refugees (I never thought I'd have to use that word to refer to American citizens) sheltered and fed for months, cleaning up the debris, and restoring basic infrastructure will probably be in the billions.
One other thing to consider are that is that initial estimates for these types of disasters are always very low. It's probably due to a little bit of not knowing enough of the facts, a little bit of blind optimism, and a lot of cautiousness on the part of insurance industry insiders who don't want to create massive economic panic.
another aspect is new orleans being such a poor city, there are many with homes without insurance; so are these people going to try to rebuild their homes and lives in new orleans or simply leave it behind them? it's hard to tell. they are resilient, that's for sure, and i hope they come back to rebuild their great city.
The $26.5 billion figure for Andrew accounts for total losses. Insured losses were $15.5 billion. $26.5 billion in today's money would be about $41 billion according to an estimate I read.
i'm finding all the media coverage very hard to piece together. nothing consistent to give you an idea of the locations they're mentioning. this is a decent map from NYTimes with some statistics that illustrate points made earlier in this thread.
i just heard on npr that n.o. may not have electrity for three months. the city is bound to become a ghost town. how many will actually return when it is back up and running?
Based on my experiences with Hurricanes, people always return.
We'll see if the insurance companies are willing to play along though.
My parents are rebuilding from Ivan, and are getting dicked over by their Wind insurer. The most troubling thing is that their story is not unique.
New codes require all houses within flood prone areas to be a min. of 8' off the ground with pilings and "blow out" walls on the ground level.
It works well on the suburban beachs and riverfronts, but in an urban area I think it would be horrible.
I am willing to bet that people will still be living in temp. housing 2, even 3 years from now.
What a mess. I am grieving at the prospect of losing a city of such majesty. What's sad is that most of the damage came after the actual hurricane as a result of infrastructural failure, and every knew it was coming.. Tulane ofcourse will bounce back and the architecture school will hopefully have a leadership role in rebuilding the city.
BIGGZ, yeah, nola.com is the best as that's where the local reporters and journalists are still trying to write down what's actually going on. having read the times picayune for many years i've never really had anything good to say about it but i'm proud of the work those guys are doing, especially with so little at their disposal. i too, am fairly sad about this all, i lived there for many years and left her about ten months ago. i feel guilty, worried, and have been smoking a pack a day and getting drunk at night as that seems to be my only means of helping. if i wasn't so damn broke all the time i'd quit my job and help with the volunteering and rebuilding of the city. she is beautiful, flawed, dirty, dark and moody, but she is a great city....i once read a quote somewhere, some guy saying "there are only two cities in this country: san francisco and new orleans, everything else, is just a shadow of the two."...i'm not trying to elevate this city above the other great cities of this country, but i don't want to lose her. i went back for new year's last year and was going again this year...i hope to still make the trip. the rebuilding may take years, but she will be rebuilt, and she will still be new orleans...and hopefully, she'll have a great set of pump systems.....and levy walls that are more than 2 feet thick....
and tulane will be fine. there's so much money being pumped into that school, she's good. the architecture school will be fine, though i feel sorry for grahmbo's office and sam's woodshop, but in the end, the city will prevail. thundercats! hoooooooooooooooooo!
pomo, i hear you, but this is a major city, and i heard they will be removing anyone who is still in the city and that the economy there will not start up for three months. that is not unique to hurricanes of the past. is it?
i spent two years at tulane and have great memories of my time there. i have been ill over the footage i have seen in this utter carnage. after the hurricane came through, the yatch club on pontchartrain burned. i have photos of it from a project we designed sophmore year on orpheum ave at the west end. a yatch building facility. it seemed like such an engaging + interesting project at the time, but now seems so superficial. i said in my little song and dance at my final crit that it would contribute to the fabric of the area and encourage redevelopment. now that whole area is under 15 feet of water.
my professor that semester, i believe, was david keiffer, an architect with a practice in the garden district. he always wanted us to develop a higher level of detail, but i just wasn't interested in the details. just the architectural promenade - it was my corbu phase. i was flipping through msnbc's pictures from a link on their front page. picture no. 15 was a man, his sister and son walking though the flooded streets of nola in the garden district. the caption said the man's name was david keiffer, and i feel pretty sure that this man was my prof that semester. i hope that he gets out safely. i hope that bjorn is safely out of there. he bums around on this board sometimes too. im sure a couple of my former classmates are still in the area.
a lot of us seem to have ties to these places.
as for me, i guess i have no point to my rambling but to get my thoughts out. my advice for ben is to hang in there. tulane is a great school. the professor's there are sensitive to the city, and im sure that a few of your first year projects will address what has happened. encourage them to offer projects which are intellectualy engaging and socially responsible in this new era. if scott wall is still there coordinating first year studio, he'll come up with some crazy stuff for you to do.
Rice University in Houston is accepting Tulane students tuition-free on a "space-available" process...
all the details are inthis article from Houston Chronicle: link
University of Michigan, though far away geographically, is also accepting displaced students. In an email from UofM president Mary Sue Coleman...
" We are working with the Association of American Universities to
assist students from other universities who have been displaced by the
storm. The Office of Undergraduate Admissions has already received several inquiries from students hoping to continue their studies at Michigan until classes can resume at their own universities, and we want to do all we can to assist within our available resources and based on what is in the best interest of the students. Please contact Director of Undergraduate Admissions Ted Spencer at 647-0102 or [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> if you are aware of such an inquiry, and he will coordinate the necessary follow up on an individual basis."
It's really great to hear that these institutions are coming forward to help Tulane. From the current news reports, it sounds as though the city has basically regressed to the Middle Ages and won't recover for some time. I heard a report on NPR this morning about a Shrimp Boat community in Alabama that was "erased" off the map from the storm. To hear the people there, you realize that there are places in the US that are only one step away from regressing to third world country standards. These people will probably not rebuild their town, because they were too poor to have insurance.
Unlike Los Angeles and New York, New Orleans has a very fragile economy for a city of its size. Because of its location on the Mississippi it is a busy layover point for ships heading into the Gulf of Mexico. Imagine all of Manhattan being destroyed from Midtown to the Battery; or the Port of LA shutting down.
This is what those people are facing- A complete colapse of their economy which may take at least a decade to recover.
a response from 4 thesis students from tulane currently holding up at a "sleepover" in dfw[we evacuated from tulane last minute]:
"f-u freshmen tulane student, you're a first year and probably would have dropped out anyways...you are not desperately searching for a thesis advisor while your whole life: books supplies, portfolio, etc. which are now floating through the cestpool that is now new orleans is GONE.
we might be bitter, but this is more of a dire situation for those of us who have been there for 4 years..."
inlikeflint86,
I too am a displaced (5th year) architecture thesis student from Tulane and I just wanted to say that "some of us" apparently have a harrowing tendency towards drama. I won't be caught saying "it's not that bad" but my advice, as others have stated, is to have some faith in Tulane. I am proud of my school, and am not considering taking my thesis to any other institution.
Yes, my stuff is in New Orleans as well... several important documents (some of which I fear I will not be able to find elsewhere) and books for my thesis are still there... But look at it this way, going to Tulane in the next few months will put you in a situation unlike any other, and you may have the chance to be part of something very special through your next 5 years at Tulane. If you leave that, I think you will regret it. Give this some time, there have been no official releases but have faith in the school... you did have faith in it enough to choose it. See if you can't find an internship in the building industry where you are, learn something, and then be ready to go back to school whenever it starts.
I for one, will be taking some time off!
'U' will admit students from colleges closed by Katrina -- if they act now
Mary Jane Smetanka, Star Tribune
September 2, 2005 KAT0902.COLLEGE
With the start of classes less than a week away, the University of Minnesota's Twin Cities campus today announced an emergency policy to admit students whose colleges were damaged by Hurricane Katrina.
The expedited enrollment policy will allow students to attend the university this fall if they are academically qualified. Classes on the Twin Cities campus start Tuesday.
But students have to act fast. Applications to enter school for fall semester must be in by the end of Friday.
Six or seven students who had planned to go to college in the Gulf region affected by the storm have contacted the university this week, asking if it would be possible to enroll for fall semester, a spokesperson said. One student has already been admitted to the law school.
Colleges in the New Orleans area are expected to be closed for weeks, if not months.
The university said expedited enrollment will be handled on a case-by-case basis. First consideration will be given to Minnesota residents.
Campus housing will be made available to as many freshmen as possible, the university said.
Normally, students would have had to apply by last spring to get into school this fall.
New Orleans is home to thousands of college students and has many four-year colleges, including Tulane University, Loyola University, Dillard University, Our Lady of Holy Cross College, Southern University, the University of New Orleans and Xavier University.
University of Illinois@ Urbana-Champaign is accepting up to 40 students from the hurricane area. I've posted the e-mail below since we do have an architecture school. Our classes started last week, but that seems to not be a problem. And I'll go the Chancellor one better--if you're one of the students that transfers here from the hurricane area, e-mail me and I'll help you find a place to live--you can crash in my apartment in Champaign if you need to do so.
From the Chancellor's Office:
--------------------------------------------------
We all have seen the suffering and devastation caused by Hurricane
Katrina, and our hearts go out to the victims and their families.
The hurricane left thousands of college students without schools and
homes. The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is one of a large
number of institutions across the nation working to assist these students.
If you are contacted by a student or parent regarding the possibility of
late admission because of the hurricane, please suggest that they contact
the Office of Admissions and Records at 217/333-0302. For financial aid
assistance, please refer callers to 217/333-0100. We are able to
accommodate up to 40 students and have already received our first one, who
will be on campus this weekend and will start classes next Tuesday. For
students who cannot come to Urbana, but want to continue their studies
this fall, we are exploring ways to connect them to our Guided Individual
Study courses.
Additionally, we are working with the Champaign County Red Cross to
collect donations for all hurricane victims. You can contribute Saturday,
September 3rd and September 10th, at Memorial Stadium before the football
games. Volunteers also will be on campus Wednesday, September 7th, and
Thursday, September 9th, at the entrances to the following locations: The
Quad, the Physical Plant, Grainger Library, Wohler's Hall and the
Veterinary Medicine Basic Sciences Building.
We also are exploring ways to accommodate displaced faculty and graduate
students, and we are sharing our engineering and planning expertise
through the Federal Emergency Management Agency and other response
agencies.
There will be other steps we take as a campus to assist those who so
desperately need our help, but these are things that we can do
immediately. Thank you for your generosity.
The President of Tulane was just on MSNBC. He said the campus itself fared fairly well but it relies on New Orleans for its infrastructure and that is going to be the key, since currently there is none. He said that he promised each and every student an answer within the next 48 hours (it's Thursday night). Stay tuned.
http://www.sbc.edu/news/?id=1530
Sweet Briar women's college in VA is offering free tuition (you have to pay your own room & board) for eligible female students enrolled in colleges displaced by the hurricane.
I've also heard about GWU and McNeese enrolling hurricane-displaced students and extending registration, though not with free tuition.
Like many other architecture schools around the country, Judson College is able to absorb Tulane Universtiy architecture student for continued study in the discipline of architecture. Judson College, an accredited 6 year B.A. + M.Arch. program in Elgin, IL (northwest suburbs of Chicago) is accepting up to 10 students for the rest of the academic year. Judson is a small private American Baptist affiliated College with approximately 170 architecture students and 10 full time faculty with a focus on community and sustainability. Please forward this information to whomever may be interested in temporarily studying at our school while the University recovers from this tragedy.
Keelan P. Kaiser, AIA
Professor of Architecture
Graduate Program Coordinator
847 628 1013 (o)
HELP FOR TULANE students go to archinect.com/emergency
hello i'm supposed to be a freshman enrolled in Tulane's architecture program. Becase of Hurricane Katrina i most likely will not be able to attend Tulane any time in the near future. If you could suggest some comperable schools with a 5 year program that would be greatly appreciated. I'm thinking Rice and Notre Dame so far.
Thanks in advance,
Ben
dude, have you talked to Tulane about this? I know people at Tulane school of arch, and the last time I talked with them they mentioned that the school was closed until Sept. 7th, but didn't sound concerned about what would happen after then. If Tulane is any decent sort of school, they'll find a way to take care of you.
Good luck, and I hope that you and your loved ones have no worse concerns than this brought about by Katrina.
Hmmmm. Tulane's web page, www.tulane.edu, is down. Guess they were hosting it on a local server.
I've never been there but a quick look on Google Earth shows that the University sits very close to water, is that the Mississippi? I dare say it's possible that a lot of buildings are damaged but perhaps you should check it out before trying to transfer.
It's just all unbelievable isn't it? So much damage....
as of august 29th (i think)80 percent of new orleans was flooded because the levies cracked. the fresh water line has cracked. the airport is flooded. this all could take weeks even months for new orleans to be safe to travel to let alone go to school. so it looks like i'm going to have to find a new school
Tulane's backup page is now at http://emergency.tulane.edu/
It is hard to determine what will be required in the coming weeks and months to recover from the situation. They are saying it will take at least several weeks to just regain power and the city is still flooding. It is all very hard to believe. But I would hope that at the latest, Tulane will be up and running in a few months. But who knows?
The backup site doesn't seem to be working anymore so here is the latest entry from the site posted earlier today:
Current Status
August 30, 7:30 p.m.
Dear Friends of Tulane:
I know you are all concerned about conditions in New Orleans and at Tulane University, and have many questions about what is going to happen in the next few days, weeks and months.
Our first priority during this time is the safety of our faculty, staff and students. Thankfully, everyone associated with the university is safe, including those of us who remain at Tulane.
Our second priority is to secure our facilities. As expected, our facilities have been damaged; however, based on our preliminary assessments, the majority of the damage can be remediated in a reasonable period of time. The uptown campus is covered with debris from fallen trees and shrubs, making it almost impossible to drive or even walk on campus. We have no power in any of the buildings other than a few where we control the power source.
Our third priority is to develop a recovery plan. This task is impaired right now by the devastation of the city and its infrastructure, and deteriorating further due to the flooding we are now facing. In addition, we don’t know when our employees will be able to return to the city, much less to the university. Therefore, until conditions stabilize, it is impossible to do any longer term recovery planning. However, part of the responsibility of the senior leadership team in Jackson, MS is to begin the planning and they have done so.
As I suspect you all know, there is no contingency plan that could ever be developed to respond to what the area and the university are experiencing. However, all of us at the university are totally committed to doing whatever it takes to get the university operational as soon as possible. I hope you will be patient and understanding of our situation as we work our way through the complexities.
It is difficult to describe what this situation feels like for those involved. It is surreal and unfathomable; yet, there is light at the end of the tunnel. Our focus is on the light and not the darkness.
Scott Cowen
it seems that i have missed something...i thought it was central switzerland that was suffering from major flooding these days.
It's unlikely you're going to be able to enroll in any other school for the fall semester, isn't it?
Schools in and around NOLA are not expecting to open before December, but I'm confident Tulane will come up with a solution for you.
At the risk of sounding like a recruiting brochure -- While the city may have been a factor in your decision to attend Tulane, even after a hurricane and flooding, Rice and ND won't compare to TSA.
i've been so worried about the friends down there, i didn't even think about school starting soon. as ddot said, i'm confident that they'll come up with a solution, too - though it may be a little on-the-fly-seat-of-the-pants-etc.
could be a time of great opportunity, considering the amount of rebuilding and restoration of services that will be necessary.
-a way to look at a whole city and understand how it works (or doesn't).
-a chance for the city to pick and choose what is necessary and desirable in the rebuilding.
i hope the architecture school is able to take an active role in the process of recovery, as well as an observational one.
Whatever you do dont go to Notre Dame or Miami
Steven, I think you're absolutely right. Disaster and opportunity often arrive together.
It might be interesting to see what types of disaster-relief and reconstruction opportunities are available. What a rare and rich way to learn about the people and place of a new city.
School will come eventually. Don't rush it.
If you are worried about freinds or family in the area please check out
neworleans.craigslist.org
I just heard on the local station that the mayor estimates that no one will be allowed back into the city until approx 16 weeks from now. Apparently the water is expected to rise for another 10 hours until is level with the lake. At that point all the pumps will fail and water will have to simply drain out into the canals.
this is maybe a little off topic,
but as a European I find it intriguing how stadiums in the U.S. become the SafeHavens for hurricane-victims.
First the Superdome in New Orleans, now the Astrodome in Houston, where people are evacuated to.
This is some kind of "multi-functionalism" of stadiums, that I was not aware of.
And what also disturbs me, is that if I try to imagine the critical situation inside the Superdome, what comes to my mind are the last scenes from the movie "Godzilla"...
maybe movie peolple are more into odd re-uses of stadiums than architects...
p.s. my best wishes are with all affected by this tragedy
16 weeks from now? That is unprecedented. Astounding.
Nothing on this scale has ever happened in the United States. Ever.
Yes it has.
Hurricane Andrew - $26.5 billion in damages
Hurricane Katrina - est. $10-25 billion...
Given what I've heard from a friend down there, I wouldn't expect any classes at Tulane this academic year.
The only flooding that this country has seen recently on this scale was in the spring of '97 on the ND/MN border where Grand Forks went underwater. Difference there was much smaller population and the water would receed on it's own, no pumping necessary. Still, a good percentage of the population up and left the city for good. I would guess New Orleans will see a population exodus of epic proportions.
Sorry to sound like a pessimist but my guess is that Tulane will do very little to help your situation aside from saying, wait. Remember that they have many enrolled students mid-way through their education to deal with in addition to the incoming students.
My advise is to start calling different colleges. Tell them your situation and they might make an exception and get you in this academic year. If that doesn't work, you might have to put college on hold for a year. My friend down there is leaving the city for good. Lost everything, moving home, starting over. At least be thankful that you didn't get caught in the middle of it all.
12-16 weeks
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/08/31/D8CATNA80.html
I think it is more appropriate to say that nothing has happened (naturally) to a major urban area of this kind.
Except for maybe the Northridge quake.
New Orleans has been flirting with this disaster for a long time now.
Ironically there was an article published in Harpers last Spring about this very event. The Author outlines in perfect detail what the city is going through now.
What really worries me is if Bengets (horrible murder of the French spelling) and Galatuars (again I am sorry for my horrible French) are OK- Both are cultural establishments dating back almost 100 years, I'd hate to see em' go.
I wonder if Jerde will do the replanning of the French Quarter now that it is destroyed...the thought of a Universal City Walk with strippers and booze for the under 21 set would be kind of interesting.
While Andrew caused billions in damage I think that Katrina's impact will be felt for a longer period of time and have a much more grievous effect on our economy. An entire city is basically being returned to the sea; as WonderK said, it is unprecedented.
I'm not talking about monetary value, even though yesterday they said that Katrina would well exceed the figures that Andrew produced. I'm talking about the fact that within a week, that storm has turned hundreds of miles of coastline into a swampland, where 2.3 million people had homes and now there is nothing and they can't even return to start rebuilding. Hurricane Andrew produced flooding, flattened homes, and people who stumbled around in shock for a few days before they returned to where their homes once sat to gather their things and find a new place to set up shop.
Katrina is producing refugees....thousands of them....that have to live in a 40-year-old stadium for probably months. The infrastructure has been rendered useless and a city that's hundreds of years old is now at the bottom of.....a lake.
THAT'S why I said it was unprecedented.
I'm with you WonderK...unprecedented.
I think there should be a serious discussion not how, but if we should rebuild.
The city will always have this possibility of devistation and destruction unless we were to alter the complete topography of the area. One must ask the question if it's worth the expense of rebuilding only to possibly rebuild again in the future. Mankind as always built cities in odd places. Venice comes to mind. I love these cities, but I cringe at what a rebuilt new orleans would be.
stick with the green wave. it's a great school,and those above are correct, it will give students a giant opportunity to work with the city and the rebuilding...you'll learn a shitload, so be patient, little grasshopper. tulane's been there for two centuries, it will continue to be. plus, notre dame sucks.
I wouldn't be at all surprised if the monetary damages end up far surpassing Andrew. The $10-25 billion figure has been thrown around a lot in the media since the storm was in progress. I heard those numbers mentioned well before the breaking of the levies in New Orleans, before the looting and fires started, and even before the widespread extent of the damage came to light as it has in the past two days.
As more facts come out, Andrew's geographic, economic, infrastructural, and humanitarian scope are looking more and more limited compared to this storm. Just the costs of keeping refugees (I never thought I'd have to use that word to refer to American citizens) sheltered and fed for months, cleaning up the debris, and restoring basic infrastructure will probably be in the billions.
One other thing to consider are that is that initial estimates for these types of disasters are always very low. It's probably due to a little bit of not knowing enough of the facts, a little bit of blind optimism, and a lot of cautiousness on the part of insurance industry insiders who don't want to create massive economic panic.
another aspect is new orleans being such a poor city, there are many with homes without insurance; so are these people going to try to rebuild their homes and lives in new orleans or simply leave it behind them? it's hard to tell. they are resilient, that's for sure, and i hope they come back to rebuild their great city.
The $26.5 billion figure for Andrew accounts for total losses. Insured losses were $15.5 billion. $26.5 billion in today's money would be about $41 billion according to an estimate I read.
DONATE MOFOS!!!!!!!!!!!
i'm finding all the media coverage very hard to piece together. nothing consistent to give you an idea of the locations they're mentioning. this is a decent map from NYTimes with some statistics that illustrate points made earlier in this thread.
NYT map
i just heard on npr that n.o. may not have electrity for three months. the city is bound to become a ghost town. how many will actually return when it is back up and running?
my heart is with those people.
Based on my experiences with Hurricanes, people always return.
We'll see if the insurance companies are willing to play along though.
My parents are rebuilding from Ivan, and are getting dicked over by their Wind insurer. The most troubling thing is that their story is not unique.
New codes require all houses within flood prone areas to be a min. of 8' off the ground with pilings and "blow out" walls on the ground level.
It works well on the suburban beachs and riverfronts, but in an urban area I think it would be horrible.
I am willing to bet that people will still be living in temp. housing 2, even 3 years from now.
What a mess. I am grieving at the prospect of losing a city of such majesty. What's sad is that most of the damage came after the actual hurricane as a result of infrastructural failure, and every knew it was coming.. Tulane ofcourse will bounce back and the architecture school will hopefully have a leadership role in rebuilding the city.
Here are some links that are more local than the CNN coverage.
http://www.wwltv.com (they have a realtime video stream)
http://www.nola.com/hurricane/photos/ (extensive photos)
BIGGZ, yeah, nola.com is the best as that's where the local reporters and journalists are still trying to write down what's actually going on. having read the times picayune for many years i've never really had anything good to say about it but i'm proud of the work those guys are doing, especially with so little at their disposal. i too, am fairly sad about this all, i lived there for many years and left her about ten months ago. i feel guilty, worried, and have been smoking a pack a day and getting drunk at night as that seems to be my only means of helping. if i wasn't so damn broke all the time i'd quit my job and help with the volunteering and rebuilding of the city. she is beautiful, flawed, dirty, dark and moody, but she is a great city....i once read a quote somewhere, some guy saying "there are only two cities in this country: san francisco and new orleans, everything else, is just a shadow of the two."...i'm not trying to elevate this city above the other great cities of this country, but i don't want to lose her. i went back for new year's last year and was going again this year...i hope to still make the trip. the rebuilding may take years, but she will be rebuilt, and she will still be new orleans...and hopefully, she'll have a great set of pump systems.....and levy walls that are more than 2 feet thick....
and tulane will be fine. there's so much money being pumped into that school, she's good. the architecture school will be fine, though i feel sorry for grahmbo's office and sam's woodshop, but in the end, the city will prevail. thundercats! hoooooooooooooooooo!
pomo, i hear you, but this is a major city, and i heard they will be removing anyone who is still in the city and that the economy there will not start up for three months. that is not unique to hurricanes of the past. is it?
e, you're right, as of now, it will be nothing but speculation, hope, and a lot of guessing.
i spent two years at tulane and have great memories of my time there. i have been ill over the footage i have seen in this utter carnage. after the hurricane came through, the yatch club on pontchartrain burned. i have photos of it from a project we designed sophmore year on orpheum ave at the west end. a yatch building facility. it seemed like such an engaging + interesting project at the time, but now seems so superficial. i said in my little song and dance at my final crit that it would contribute to the fabric of the area and encourage redevelopment. now that whole area is under 15 feet of water.
my professor that semester, i believe, was david keiffer, an architect with a practice in the garden district. he always wanted us to develop a higher level of detail, but i just wasn't interested in the details. just the architectural promenade - it was my corbu phase. i was flipping through msnbc's pictures from a link on their front page. picture no. 15 was a man, his sister and son walking though the flooded streets of nola in the garden district. the caption said the man's name was david keiffer, and i feel pretty sure that this man was my prof that semester. i hope that he gets out safely. i hope that bjorn is safely out of there. he bums around on this board sometimes too. im sure a couple of my former classmates are still in the area.
a lot of us seem to have ties to these places.
as for me, i guess i have no point to my rambling but to get my thoughts out. my advice for ben is to hang in there. tulane is a great school. the professor's there are sensitive to the city, and im sure that a few of your first year projects will address what has happened. encourage them to offer projects which are intellectualy engaging and socially responsible in this new era. if scott wall is still there coordinating first year studio, he'll come up with some crazy stuff for you to do.
.gillespie
Rice University in Houston is accepting Tulane students tuition-free on a "space-available" process...
all the details are inthis article from Houston Chronicle:
link
University of Michigan, though far away geographically, is also accepting displaced students. In an email from UofM president Mary Sue Coleman...
" We are working with the Association of American Universities to
assist students from other universities who have been displaced by the
storm. The Office of Undergraduate Admissions has already received several inquiries from students hoping to continue their studies at Michigan until classes can resume at their own universities, and we want to do all we can to assist within our available resources and based on what is in the best interest of the students. Please contact Director of Undergraduate Admissions Ted Spencer at 647-0102 or [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> if you are aware of such an inquiry, and he will coordinate the necessary follow up on an individual basis."
(TCAUP is a mighty fine program)
It's really great to hear that these institutions are coming forward to help Tulane. From the current news reports, it sounds as though the city has basically regressed to the Middle Ages and won't recover for some time. I heard a report on NPR this morning about a Shrimp Boat community in Alabama that was "erased" off the map from the storm. To hear the people there, you realize that there are places in the US that are only one step away from regressing to third world country standards. These people will probably not rebuild their town, because they were too poor to have insurance.
Unlike Los Angeles and New York, New Orleans has a very fragile economy for a city of its size. Because of its location on the Mississippi it is a busy layover point for ships heading into the Gulf of Mexico. Imagine all of Manhattan being destroyed from Midtown to the Battery; or the Port of LA shutting down.
This is what those people are facing- A complete colapse of their economy which may take at least a decade to recover.
I hear Columbia is doing the same as UM and Rice
a response from 4 thesis students from tulane currently holding up at a "sleepover" in dfw[we evacuated from tulane last minute]:
"f-u freshmen tulane student, you're a first year and probably would have dropped out anyways...you are not desperately searching for a thesis advisor while your whole life: books supplies, portfolio, etc. which are now floating through the cestpool that is now new orleans is GONE.
we might be bitter, but this is more of a dire situation for those of us who have been there for 4 years..."
friends of architorture-
sorry you guys have had such a crazy bad time. i've got friends with similar stories. it sucks bad.
but you and ben simply have different problems. everybody will have their story and their losses. some will be worse than others.
empathy is better than f-u's. hang together and stay human.
inlikeflint86,
I too am a displaced (5th year) architecture thesis student from Tulane and I just wanted to say that "some of us" apparently have a harrowing tendency towards drama. I won't be caught saying "it's not that bad" but my advice, as others have stated, is to have some faith in Tulane. I am proud of my school, and am not considering taking my thesis to any other institution.
Yes, my stuff is in New Orleans as well... several important documents (some of which I fear I will not be able to find elsewhere) and books for my thesis are still there... But look at it this way, going to Tulane in the next few months will put you in a situation unlike any other, and you may have the chance to be part of something very special through your next 5 years at Tulane. If you leave that, I think you will regret it. Give this some time, there have been no official releases but have faith in the school... you did have faith in it enough to choose it. See if you can't find an internship in the building industry where you are, learn something, and then be ready to go back to school whenever it starts.
I for one, will be taking some time off!
hear hear. a voice of reason and empathy.
'U' will admit students from colleges closed by Katrina -- if they act now
Mary Jane Smetanka, Star Tribune
September 2, 2005 KAT0902.COLLEGE
With the start of classes less than a week away, the University of Minnesota's Twin Cities campus today announced an emergency policy to admit students whose colleges were damaged by Hurricane Katrina.
The expedited enrollment policy will allow students to attend the university this fall if they are academically qualified. Classes on the Twin Cities campus start Tuesday.
But students have to act fast. Applications to enter school for fall semester must be in by the end of Friday.
Six or seven students who had planned to go to college in the Gulf region affected by the storm have contacted the university this week, asking if it would be possible to enroll for fall semester, a spokesperson said. One student has already been admitted to the law school.
Colleges in the New Orleans area are expected to be closed for weeks, if not months.
The university said expedited enrollment will be handled on a case-by-case basis. First consideration will be given to Minnesota residents.
Campus housing will be made available to as many freshmen as possible, the university said.
Normally, students would have had to apply by last spring to get into school this fall.
New Orleans is home to thousands of college students and has many four-year colleges, including Tulane University, Loyola University, Dillard University, Our Lady of Holy Cross College, Southern University, the University of New Orleans and Xavier University.
I just heard on democracy now that Columbia University made an announcement that they will accept Tulane studens.
University of Illinois@ Urbana-Champaign is accepting up to 40 students from the hurricane area. I've posted the e-mail below since we do have an architecture school. Our classes started last week, but that seems to not be a problem. And I'll go the Chancellor one better--if you're one of the students that transfers here from the hurricane area, e-mail me and I'll help you find a place to live--you can crash in my apartment in Champaign if you need to do so.
From the Chancellor's Office:
--------------------------------------------------
We all have seen the suffering and devastation caused by Hurricane
Katrina, and our hearts go out to the victims and their families.
The hurricane left thousands of college students without schools and
homes. The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is one of a large
number of institutions across the nation working to assist these students.
If you are contacted by a student or parent regarding the possibility of
late admission because of the hurricane, please suggest that they contact
the Office of Admissions and Records at 217/333-0302. For financial aid
assistance, please refer callers to 217/333-0100. We are able to
accommodate up to 40 students and have already received our first one, who
will be on campus this weekend and will start classes next Tuesday. For
students who cannot come to Urbana, but want to continue their studies
this fall, we are exploring ways to connect them to our Guided Individual
Study courses.
Additionally, we are working with the Champaign County Red Cross to
collect donations for all hurricane victims. You can contribute Saturday,
September 3rd and September 10th, at Memorial Stadium before the football
games. Volunteers also will be on campus Wednesday, September 7th, and
Thursday, September 9th, at the entrances to the following locations: The
Quad, the Physical Plant, Grainger Library, Wohler's Hall and the
Veterinary Medicine Basic Sciences Building.
We also are exploring ways to accommodate displaced faculty and graduate
students, and we are sharing our engineering and planning expertise
through the Federal Emergency Management Agency and other response
agencies.
There will be other steps we take as a campus to assist those who so
desperately need our help, but these are things that we can do
immediately. Thank you for your generosity.
Sincerely,
Richard Herman
Chancellor
I don't know if you have seen this, but here is a picture of New Orleans.
If any Tulane people make it to Columbia, let me know.
The President of Tulane was just on MSNBC. He said the campus itself fared fairly well but it relies on New Orleans for its infrastructure and that is going to be the key, since currently there is none. He said that he promised each and every student an answer within the next 48 hours (it's Thursday night). Stay tuned.
Here's a couple more...
http://www.sbc.edu/news/?id=1530
Sweet Briar women's college in VA is offering free tuition (you have to pay your own room & board) for eligible female students enrolled in colleges displaced by the hurricane.
I've also heard about GWU and McNeese enrolling hurricane-displaced students and extending registration, though not with free tuition.
Dear Tulane students,
Like many other architecture schools around the country, Judson College is able to absorb Tulane Universtiy architecture student for continued study in the discipline of architecture. Judson College, an accredited 6 year B.A. + M.Arch. program in Elgin, IL (northwest suburbs of Chicago) is accepting up to 10 students for the rest of the academic year. Judson is a small private American Baptist affiliated College with approximately 170 architecture students and 10 full time faculty with a focus on community and sustainability. Please forward this information to whomever may be interested in temporarily studying at our school while the University recovers from this tragedy.
Keelan P. Kaiser, AIA
Professor of Architecture
Graduate Program Coordinator
847 628 1013 (o)
Penn State is also accepting displaced students. For more information call admissions at (814) 865-5471.
syracuse university school of architecture is accepting arch and other students. call 315 443 2256 ask for Jeanne Riley or Rnadall Korman
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