As Hurricane Katrina barreled into the Gulf Coast last week, flattening buildings, flooding wide swaths of the Louisiana and ississippi coasts and creating the most devastating humanitarian crisis in the United States in the past half century, New Orleans native Rebecca Magee (COL ’08) had no idea if her family was safe.

Watching from far-off Washington, D.C., Magee, who had just begun her tenure as a resident assistant in Darnall Hall, couldn’t write or call home. She could only sit and watch the television networks as they broadcasted news of the hurricane’s devastation.

“For the first couple days I refused to watch it,” she said. “I let myself watch it, and that was probably the biggest mistake. . It was incredibly painful to watch.”

Now, Magee, whose family made it safely to Houston before the hurricane struck, is one of dozens of Georgetown students who have been personally touched by the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, a massive storm that officials say may have taken several thousand lives.

Students, faculty and administrators have banded together in the past two weeks to provide relief for victims of the hurricane by raising money, recruiting volunteers and planning charity events. Georgetown officials say they have admitted nearly 90 students from Tulane University and Loyola University in New Orleans, both of which have cancelled all classes for the fall semester, and expect the number to rise soon to include almost 100 students.

Danny Murphy (COL ’09) was still moving into his New South room when he and his parents first heard of the scope of the destruction near their house in New Orleans. Murphy’s sister and her husband, a third-year Tulane University law student, were forced to evacuate from New Orleans to Alabama.

Because Murphy and his parents were in Georgetown, they weren’t able to board up their home to prepare it for the hurricane. When the storm struck, however, the house – which is higher in elevation than the surrounding houses – sustained relatively minor damage, Murphy said.

“There still was fairly major flooding,” he said. “I have a lot of friends who live five minutes away from me whose houses were flooded up to the second story.”

Murphy said he has no idea when he or his family will be able to return home. Officials have allowed people to return for only three days to collect their remaining possessions before forcing them to leave, he said.

“The projections have been all over the place,” he said. “I think the whole thing is being underestimated for how long it’s going to take.”

The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina has left many faculty and students like Murphy unsure about the most basic of personal matters – the security of their homes and the whereabouts of friends and family foremost among them.

The presence of nearly 90 displaced students in Law Center, edical School and main campus classrooms has also brought the devastation home in a way even television pictures could not.

“I hope people won’t forget about this because a month from now, many months from now life is not going to be the same,” said Dmitriy Zakharov (SFS ’08), whose home in obile, Ala., was damaged during the storm, although Mobile was only skirted by Katrina’s edge.

“Downtown Mobile was completely flooded,” Zakharov said. “This was such a powerful storm [that] it’s going to affect people for a long, long time.

“Part of our roof was damaged,” he continued. “We lost a few trees. . There’s not a lot of structural damage, just there’s a lot of debris and whatnot, power outage.”

New Orleans resident Amelia Colomb (COL ’09) had just arrived at Georgetown when she learned that much of her hometown had been destroyed by the hurricane.

“It’s been really difficult entering college with the events of the hurricane,” she said. “One minute I was at home and everything was fine. Within the next few days everything in my hometown was destroyed.”

Despite the crisis at home, Colomb said she has received plenty of support during the past two weeks from new friends and acquaintances at Georgetown.

“The support system around here is really good,” she said. “Even though I’ve only been on campus for about a week, so many people have been asking me how I am.

“It makes me feel good to see people from all over trying to help the victims from Hurricane Katrina,” she added. “It was such an awful event and people from home need as much help as possible, so I think that it’s really great that people from Georgetown are helping.”

Seldom has a natural disaster had such a widespread impact on U.S. higher education. Colleges and universities across the country have offered enrollment to students in areas affected by the hurricane.

Like many others affected by the hurricane, Magee said her future has suddenly become unpredictable.

“It’s so scary that it’s my home and it’s destroyed,” she said. “Every tree is down. Every fence is down. . The house is fine, but if you look around it, everything is destroyed.

“I just have these horrible thoughts like `What if it becomes a ghost town?'” she added. “It’s just a fear that my home won’t be the same as it was. It’ll never be same.”

For his part, Murphy said he plans to deal with events as they continue to develop. For now, he’ll be busy starting his first semester at Georgetown, unsure when – or if – he’ll be able to return to his home in New Orleans.

“You think you’re coming back to that room for Thanksgiving or Christmas,” he said. “But you’re not. So my dorm room is my home for the moment.”