August 29, 2008:

Hi everyone,

Today is the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, a storm of epic proportions that left so much damage in its wake. We had thought this would be a quiet day with our being able to celebrate in a small way our great strides in bringing back the vast majority of Tulane's Music Collection for the start of the fall semester. Instead, at 4:30 August 28th we closed and locked the doors of the center. We had spent the afternoon covering computer equipment with plastic drapes and moving anything we could off of the floors.

Some spent time cleaning out the fridge and other staff prepared materials to be moved out of the staging area at H-TML. All of this was to prepare for our evacuation from New Orleans in anticipation of Hurricane Gustav. Tulane University is closing its doors at noon, August 29th and does not plan to reopen until next Wednesday. The staff of the Recovery Center are all busily preparing for their own personal evacuations now. Please be thinking of all of us, all of the Tulane community and New Orleans as we deal with this.

Take care.

Del Hamilton
Project Manager