My Katrina Story Part II\r\n\r\n The first part of my Katrina story, including my exodus from New Orleans and the days immediately following the storm, can already be found posted in the archive. This is the second part of that story, which will cover my time in Baton Rouge, and the return of UNO to New Orleans.\r\n About a week after the hurricane had come through, I was beginning to go stir crazy in our condo in Baton Rouge. I had no job that I knew of, nothing to do, no school, nothing. I had successfully registered at LSU for the semester but we weren’t starting for another few days. That night, I received a phone call from a co-worker telling me that University Computing was going to re-open in the LSU System Building and they were looking for those of us able to work in Baton Rouge. I immediately got in touch with my boss and he told me to be there the next day. For almost a month, I worked from a lunch table in the break room of the LSU System Building. I would ride the bus to campus and then transfer to the Greek Bus that would take me to the building. It was a long commute for ½ a mile, but worth not having to park at LSU. Work was slow at first since we weren’t sure what the status of the campus was and whether or not we would have a fall semester. Once UNO decided that we were going to have a fall semester after all, everything changed.\r\n The first thing I had to do was resign from my classes at LSU. In order to keep the job I had at UNO, I needed to be enrolled at UNO full-time. Shortly thereafter, I was reassigned to work with the Director for Institutional Technology on Blackboard. We had lost our Blackboard servers during the storm, but the Blackboard Company had graciously agreed to host our classes for us on their servers. We had the daunting task of uploading all of the course content, as well as troubleshooting and assisting faculty with getting their classes up and running. At times, I had trouble wrapping my head around the whole thing. We moved our little operation to a computer lab in the Frey Computer Building, which was much quieter and conducive to our work. I then spent the next two months working on our fall semester and getting everything up and running. \r\n In mid-October I believe it was, we received word that most of us would be moving back to the UNO Jefferson Campus along with the Chancellor and most of the administration. I was looking forward to this move as I wanted to go back to doing desktop support. Unfortunately, only the first two floors of the building were open, so we had quite a time managing space. Our department operated from one table in the back of the lunch room for the entire rest of the semester. It was indeed a challenge, but I enjoyed being right in the thick of things as we prepared to go back to the lakefront. We would receive almost daily reports from people going to and from campus as to the condition of various buildings and systems. Luckily, the UCC was not damaged as our building sits on the highest ground on campus. We only lost some equipment that was stolen by squatters during the evacuation. We were primed and ready to return to our offices for the beginning of spring. \r\n As soon as we returned to work after Christmas, we were back in our office on the Lakefront Campus, a feat that seemed almost impossible four months before. It was very strange though, as there were no people around. There were no faculty, no students, no people living in the surrounding neighborhood, it was very quite. Driving home through the abandoned neighborhood after dark was very scary as well. Slowly, life on campus has slowly returned to normal since then. Almost all of the buildings are open now, and enrollment is slowly climbing. I will graduate in December of this year, but hopefully I will remain with UCC for a long time to come.