Connecticut residents attending school in Louisiana detail their experience with Hurricane Ida
By Sharon Johnson, Andrew Masse
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HARTFORD, Connectitcut (WFSB) — Millions remain without power in Louisiana and blackouts are expected to last for weeks.
Some of those folks are Connecticut residents who attend school in New Orleans.
Eversource crews are heading down to help restore power.
One student Eyewitness News spoke with says their electricity went out hours ago and now all remaining students have to evacuate.
“I slept in the hallway last night, because there was some concern that the windows would break, so I dragged my mattress out into the hallway,” Tulane University student and Glastonbury native Shayna Lebowitz tells us.
Shayna stayed on campus through Hurricane Ida.
When Eyewitness News first connected with her this afternoon, she was stepping outside for the first time in two days.
Just two hours later, the situation deteriorated.
“The power went out two hours ago and it’s ninety degrees, so it’s really hot in here and the flooding in my room is drying, and it smells like mold and mildew,” Lebowitz says.
Shayna is one of many Tulane students who now has to evacuate the campus.
The university is shuttling remaining students to Houston by bus tomorrow morning.
“I’ll be in Houston for a couple of days and then I’m getting a flight back to Connecticut, where I’ll be until October 6,” explained Lebowitz.
Freshman and Stamford native Emma Goldberg just started classes last Monday.
By Friday evening, she evacuated hours before Hurricane Ida made landfall.
“Seeing broken windows in my residence hall and hearing about flooding on campus. There was actually a transformer that blew up near one of the residential areas on campus,” Tulane University student and Connecticut native Emma Goldberg stated.
She’s now in Charleston with family, but is worried about her friends who are scrambling to get out of New Orleans.
The earliest they will be allowed back on campus is October 6.
“I was one of the only people who left in my friend group at school. Everyone is kind of in a rampage right now,” Goldberg added.
The message being repeated from students, volunteers, and officials is donate to help folks out in Louisiana.
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