Originally posted by wolflady
Oh my gosh, Kate...that is so scary!! How are your toes? Prayers are on the way from me too, for everyone who was affected by this.
It looks like there was a lot of damage from this flood. What's happening on your campus? Is there a lot of re-construction to do? Are classes still in session, or was there too much damage?
Classes were cancelled on November 1st and 3rd, and we already had November 2nd off for Election day. When the students returned to campus on the 4th some classes were cancelled while other classes were relocated. Students returned to a campus littered with rotting debris and smelling of a pungent mixture between decomposing organic material and the diesel fumes coming from dozens of droning generators. As you can see on this map (http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/da...02/ln27map.gif) the flood waters ran down the center of campus affecting certain buildings more significantly. One of the two libraries on campus is closed and needs major cleanup (as the first picture link shows). Also, most of the building’s air conditioning systems are broken (yes, we need air conditioning at this time of year) and if the systems are working, they are not working very well and smell suspiciously moldy. UH has contracted with a mainland-based “emergency clean-up company that specializes in recovering buildings and materials after manmade and natural disasters” and with the help of these experts, the four most damaged buildings may be fully “cleaned and sanitized” in as little as one month.

My computer science professor told us about how she was surprisingly affected by the flood despite the fact that she was out of the country at the time. She was in Europe that week and had her car parked on campus (with permission) in the parking lot of the building where her office is located. This building was not significantly affected by the flood waters and so upon her return she was very surprised to find her car missing from the spot where she had parked it a few days earlier. She found out later that it had been towed and went to the impound lot to pick it up. When she got there, she saw her little car, covered in debris with a muddy water mark was halfway up the car door! The moral of her story was this : sometimes those camera phones REALLY do come in handy! She took pictures on the spot, before the guilty looking attendant could do anything to clean up her car, and she sent those pictures to her insurance agency very soon thereafter. She was telling us this story and seemed surprisingly upbeat about it, I mean she was just sort of laughing at the irony of it! I’ve seen this sort of attitude all over campus. People just aren’t as upset as you might expect them to be.

My knee and toes are just fine. Thanks for asking.

Thank you for all your kind words, good thoughts and prayers. They are all very much appreciated!