On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina changed life on the Gulf Coast forever. The ripples caused by evacuations and infrastructure collapse reached across the country, and the Volunteer community was affected in many ways.
As we approach the ten-year mark of the storm’s landfall, the Office of Communications and Marketing is collecting stories from our campus community about students, faculty, and staff who were involved in and affected by the evacuation ahead of and during the storm, and in cleanup and recovery projects in the Gulf Coast region. Send us your story.
Here are some of the stories our office has worked on in the past decade about people affected by the storm and campus organizations that put their Volunteer Spirit to work in recovery efforts:
- Staff Member’s Dog Helps Make Elementary School Reading Class Less “Ruff:” A dog teaching students how to read may sound silly. But Boudreaux, a big fluffy white rescue dog from Louisiana—accompanied by the UT staff member who owns him—spends one morning each week giving students the encouragement they need to excel in the classroom. December 15, 2014
- Katrina Victims Receive Health Care Assistance from UT Nursing Students and Faculty: In response to the storm’s devastation, volunteers from all over the world have come to the aid of the hurricane victims, and in true Volunteer State fashion, several nursing faculty and students have traveled several times to the New Orleans area to offer health care assistance. August 29, 2007
- UT Professor to Help New Orleans Recover from Katrina: An architecture professor is part of a team that will develop the plan to help New Orleans recover from Hurricane Katrina. Mark Schimmenti is a lead urban designer on a team headed by Frederic Schwartz Architects of New York. Schimmenti said he and Schwartz—who recently taught a class on the rebuilding of New Orleans at Harvard University—have worked together on projects for more than twenty years. October 12, 2006
- Hurricane Katrina, One Year Later: Student Evacuee Finds a New Home in Tennessee: Like other area college students, Daniel Barnes’s life is a hectic blur this August. Barnes is finishing the summer as a resident advisor at UT and preparing to move into the occupational therapy doctoral program at Belmont University. Still, the start-of-the-semester chaos this year is nothing like what he experienced last August when he was a student at Tulane University in New Orleans. August 18, 2006
- Hurricane Katrina, One Year Later: UT Alum Says Life is ‘Two Steps Forward, One Step Back:’ New Orleans social worker Mary-Ellen Harwood, a Memphis native and an alumna of UT Martin, is director of mental health services at the NO/AIDS Task Force in New Orleans. As such, she’s spent the last year helping the community’s AIDS patients recover from the storm. August 17, 2006
- Hurricane Katrina, One Year Later: UT Alumnus Still Struggling to Get Life Back in Order: Less than thirty-six hours before Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast last year, alumnus Dereck Terry was returning from a business trip, exhausted and looking forward to having a little R & R at his condo in the French Quarter. August 17, 2006
- Hurricane Katrina, One Year Later: UT Vet Students Helped Four-Legged Refugees: The little white dog had matted hair and no zip. Like so many animals—and humans—who endured Hurricane Katrina, he was sad and lonely, the zest for life ripped out of him by the storm. August 16, 2006
- Hurricane Katrina, One Year Later: UT Extension Helped Local Girl Restock Library Shelves: Thanks to a UT extension agent, a Gatlinburg high school student and local 4-H members, school bookshelves have been restocked in one parish badly damaged by Hurricane Katrina. August 15, 2006
- The Volunteer Spirit: Vols, Red Cross to Aid Victims of Hurricane Katrina: The UT Student Government Association and the Athletics Department will help the American Red Cross raise funds this week for those affected by Hurricane Katrina. August 31, 2005
- UT System Aids College Students in Wake of Katrina: The UT System will accept students from colleges and universities that were hardest hit by Hurricane Katrina to allow them to continue their educations. August 31, 2005