Posted on 09/24/2005 8:02:10 AM PDT by WestTexasWend
*Family and friends cram inside dorm rooms, apartments to wait out hurricane*
Natalie Mills knew what she had to do to prepare for Hurricane Rita: stash her alcohol tin the bottom drawer of her refrigerator.
It was her way of parent-proofing her Austin apartment before her roommate's parents and brother, fleeing the hurricane from Houston, temporarily move into their small two-bedroom apartment.
Although she's glad to help, Mills said the parents might cramp her party plans with her roommate, Amy Wald.
"Her 21st birthday is on Monday," 18-year-old Mills explained.
In an unusual role-reversal, thousands of Austin-area college students are hosting their parents and other family members at their homes, apartments and even dorm rooms while Hurricane Rita lashes the Gulf Coast near the Houston area.
"There was some frantic cleaning," said Matt Russo, a 22-year-old University of Texas at Austin student whose parents drove up from Beaumont to stay in his one-bedroom apartment. "And I had to hide my, um, paraphernalia."
For the first time, UT has agreed to let students living in dormitories host immediate family members indefinitely, said Doug Garrard, associate director of UT's Division of Housing and Food Service. Because some of the university's temporary housing was given to Hurricane Katrina evacuees earlier this month, evacuees had to rely on students to provide extra housing, he said.
"This is really a short-tern solution to the mass exodus we've been seeing from the Gulf Coast area," Garrard said. As of Friday afternoon, 148 family members were staying in rooms in seven residence halls.
About 9,000 UT students come from the Houston and Gulf Coast areas, said Maryann Ruddock, the director of UT's Office of Institutional Research.
Other area universities are also welcoming some unexpected guests.
At Southwestern University in Georgetown, school officials are allowing students' family members to stay in dormitory lounges, athletics facilities and even the school chapel. Officials were surprised early Friday morning when one family came toting three dogs, two cats, one lizard and a bull.
The animals have since been moved to a ranch in Jarrell, officials said. About 55 human evacuees stayed at the university Thursday night.
In Austin, Ana Wolfowicz, a 19-year-old junior at UT, had to find a room for her parents and 10 other friends and family members at her dorm-style co-operative housing in the West Campus neighborhood. Known among some residents for its laid-back atmosphere and parties, the Pearl Street Co-op is now home to at least three Houston families.
Thursday night, Wolfowicz's parents and sisters slept in her room, no bigger than a large walk-in closet.
After their first night in the co-op, Wolfowicz's parents mingled in the windowless hallway outside her room where students walked to and from their rooms. It beats sitting in traffic on Interstate 10, her mother said.
Wolfowicz warned them that the weekend usually brings loud, nonstop parties.
Her parents weren't fazed.
"Last night I heard this big rock music sound around 2 a.m.," her father, Daniel Wolfowicz, said. "I think I'm ready for the college experience. Let's go to the parties."
I predict a raid on Matt's room in the near future.
LOL...and if Matt didn't want the folks to know about his 'habit' he shouldn't have given the AAS his name. duh.
LOL LOL LOL! Now I want to know what Matt is majoring in?
:D
Horticulture. Or maybe chemistry.
}:-)4
I was thinking education. If Matt were taking horticulture or chemistry, as has been pointed out, he would have been less apt to reveal his name when divulging his personal habit.
LOL! Turn about is fair play. Parents housed them for 18 years now it's their turn.
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