By Andrew Coen
Tankel managed to return safely to the Five Towns. But the upcoming semester is in disarray for him and many other local Tulane students after the hurricane ripped through the city, leaving it uninhabitable and forcing the college to shut down indefinitely.
While Tulane is in the uptown section of New Orleans, away from much of the original destruction, it too is below sea level, and the failure of the city's levees to control massive flooding has rendered the area around the university off limits as well, according to local parents and students.
Soon after learning that Tulane was ordering all students to evacuate, while the storm was still offshore, Tankel and two of his friends and former Lawrence tennis teammates, Daniel Berke and Ian Kaiser, made an 8 1/2-hour drive to Atlanta to stay with Berke's older brother at Emory University before catching a flight to New York. Tankel's parents, who had helped their son move, caught the last flight from New Orleans to New York on Sunday morning, Aug. 28, before the airport closed.
"It's been a very stressful few days," said Tankel, who was planning to walk on to Tulane's Division 1 tennis team after serving as co-captain this past season at Lawrence. "It's been unreal."
Tankel now plans to attend SUNY-Buffalo for the semester, after the university offered a special deal for Tulane students affected by the hurricane. He hopes to return to New Orleans next semester if the area can be cleaned up.
"It's been hectic," said Kaiser, who drove up the East Coast over a two-day period to get back to the Five Towns, staying with friends along the way.
Kaiser and Berke have looked into many area schools for the upcoming semester, and said they are considering going to Syracuse since it, along with other colleges, has made special accommodations for students displaced by the hurricane.
The sudden evacuation from college life was much the same for the other Five Towns students at Tulane, Lawrence graduates Samantha Peitler, Aaron Turenstein, Jamie Rothman and Hewlett High School's Carly Weinberg. They were all set to kick off their freshman year in New Orleans before the devastating hurricane hit. In their haste to evacuate, many students were forced to leave items in their dorm rooms that may well be lost, since so much of the city is under water.
"They are all kind of in limbo," said Dr. Marvin Tankel, who has a medical office in Lynbrook and whose son's dorm room was on the first floor.
Many Tulane students were bused to Jackson, Miss., and housed at Jackson State, but Turenstein and his family decided to drive 12 hours to Orlando, Fla., once news of the impending storm came. Turenstein was able to avoid the heavy evacuation traffic. "We just beat it out," he said. He packed for five days thinking he would be able to fly back to New Orleans to start the semester, but once he learned that the school would not be opening anytime soon, he flew back to New York, and is now uncertain about plans for the semester.
Peitler and Laura Krieger of Lynbrook, the daughter of Number Five School principal Melissa Krieger, who both planned to attend Tulane, are now enrolled at the University of Delaware for the semester and rooming together. Peitler said Delaware was her second choice school and soon after arriving back in the Five Towns called the university and they said they could accommodate her. "I'm planning on staying the year since New Orleans won't be the same and then see what happens," said Peitler of her plans for the year after the hurricane.
Matt Coleman of Hewlett, a 2004 Tulane graduate, helped his friend Jake Calamusa, for whom he worked in the university's dean's office, by inviting him and his elderly mother to stay at his home after they were able to evacuate west of New Orleans and get a flight from Houston to New York. "It's heart-wrenching," said Coleman of the state of his alma mater. "I just hope it can get back on its legs."
Scott Cowen, the president of Tulane, said in a statement posted on the university's Web site that nearly all students have been relocated to their home communities or other safe locations under the school's supervision, and that all residence halls are secure and the contents appear intact. Cowen said that in the next week the university will be better able to give a timeline of when operations can resume.
Local colleges are doing their part to assist and accommodate the displaced students, with Hofstra registering students from affected institutions in the gulf coast region under "visiting" student status. Hofstra officials said they would provide special academic advisement, counseling, and financial aid assistance to affected students and their families and are waiving the application fee and providing special orientation sessions to try and accommodate the students until they return to their home institutions. "Our advisement office will work with each student individually to try and arrange a class schedule that best fits the student's academic interests," said Hofstra spokeswoman Melissa Connolly.
Adelphi is also helping out Tulane and other students by extended its registration deadline, and will admit students who have been impacted by the storm until Sept. 9. Nassau Community College is also extending an invitation to college students from the region whose education has been interrupted.
While the students' upcoming semester and year is uncertain, their parents are grateful that their children are safe and healthy. "[The families] are upset about missing the semester, but we are more upset about what has happened to the people of New Orleans," said Dr. Tankel. "Everybody is safe and healthy, which is more than you can say for the people down there, unfortunately."
Comments about this story? ACoen@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 210.
