LSU in the Eye of the Storm: A University Model for Disaster Response Renée Bacher, Teresa Devlin, Kristine Calongne, Joshua Duplechain and Stephanie Pertuit Free, with shipping charge Louisiana State University Press

Book offers model for disaster response

While debate continues regarding the federal government’s response to Hurricane Katrina, it can be said that Louisiana State University was preparing before the storm hit—after all, LSU researchers had warned earlier that the 2004 hurricane season could be historic.

LSU in the Eye of the Storm: A University Model for Disaster Response is a primer that any institution can emulate.

While the mood on the LSU campus on the days before the storm was one of “calm concern,” write the book’s authors, a shelter on campus for evacuees from assisted-living facilities had already been planned. Two days before the storm, LSU’s police and its Office of Public Affairs met to warn the public, and Monday classes were canceled as a routine precaution.

While the book mentions that no one was prepared for the scope of Katrina, it offers a clear history of how one institution was able to help with human and animal rescue efforts, provide medical care, house evacuees, continue media coverage and reopen.

To order the book, e-mail a request to the LSU Office of Public Affairs (urelat1@lsu.edu) and include a name, telephone number and e-mail address in your request.