By Brian Balboa
UHCLIDIAN STAFF

Fearing the wrath of Hurricane Lili earlier this month, UH-Clear Lake closed its doors for the second time this year. Although Hurricane Lili did not make landfall near the Clear Lake area, UH-Clear Lake President William Staples said he felt the possibility of a level four or five hurricane hitting the greater Houston area was just too great a risk.

"While each of us has to make our own decisions about our personal safety and that of our families, I decided that we would cancel the 7 p.m. Wednesday classes to enable our employees and students to make the decisions they would have to make regarding protection of their homes or other property and leaving the immediate area," Staples said. "I regret the decision in light of what eventually happened, or didn"t happen, the following day. However, it was the right decision to make with the information available at the time."

One factor Staples and other board members took into consideration before closing the school was how quickly Hurricane Lili was upgraded from a level two hurricane to a level four. Lili moved from level two to level four in just a matter of hours and it was predicted the hurricane could even reach level five, the most severe type, before reaching land.

One of the board members who met with Staples about making the decision was Darlene Biggers, associate vice president of student services. Biggers, like many other faculty members at the meeting said the closing was very necessary at the time.

"In my point of view the stakes were too high not to close," Biggers said. "If it had been a level one hurricane, I think it would have not been that costly to have taken the chance of waiting. But, with a level four hurricane breathing down our neck, we thought it was just prudent to be overly cautious."

Biggers added that the closing sent a strong message that Staples and other administrators are going to protect the university community as much as possible. She also said the consideration for human life was the utmost concern.

"I think it was very necessary," said Daniel Waits, legal studies student and member of the Student Government Association. "It was nice of the school to be sincere about letting us make our own decision about whether we should take our families or not, and leave. If the school had been open here, all the students that came to class on Wednesday night wouldn't have had the option of knowing what to do. I was very appreciative of it."

Although UH-Clear Lake was closed for safety precautions, not all students agreed that the school should have been shut down. For some students the closing of UH-Clear Lake meant missing important classes and tests. " I believe that the school looks for the students' best interest, but I think that they took it too far when it came to the hurricane. There was no exact path for it and no direct threat."

University of Houston System Chancellor Arthur Smith said that each university president is empowered to make the decision about his or her institution closing based on local conditions.

Smith, who supports Staples' decision, said whenever severe weather threatens Houston or the University of Houston, the situation is monitored and a decision is made based on what is predicted for the area.

"This is our regular procedure," Smith said. "We have closed the University of Houston main campus in the past due to flooding in the area, and will do so again if necessary. The University of Houston has had an emergency procedure plan in place for a number of years, which was updated and expanded following Tropical Storm Allison."

Following Allison, the management team at University of Houston worked throughout the recovery effort to update their existing plan.

"Each UH-System university has its own plan since, oftentimes, the emergency is localized to one institution," Smith said. "Our storm mitigation efforts included relocating mechanical/electrical and IT equipment, modifying basement floor and wall surfaces, relocating critical and expensive functions, for example: law library and computer rooms, and developing storm containment systems in tunnels."

This month's school closing at UH-Clear Lake was the second this year. The last time UH-Clear Lake shut down because of weather conditions was in September, when Tropical Storm Fay threatened the greater Houston area. Although weather conditions for Fay were strong, no damage was done to UH-Clear Lake.

The last major hurricane to hit the Clear Lake area was Hurricane Alicia in 1983. That hurricane was a level three. Alicia left extensive damage to the roofing of the Bayou Building, knocked out several windows and destroyed the glass roofing in both Atria.

Since Tropical Storm Allison, UH-Clear Lake has established a crisis management plan dealing with many issues, including weather. There is also a disaster recovery plan in place at UH-Clear Lake that provides procedures to help the university recover from a disaster as soon as possible. When administrators decide to close the doors, UH-Clear Lake police are responsible for making sure the university is shut down. During the university shutdown, UH-Clear Lake's police made sure the closing went as smooth as possible.

"What we do is immediately update the emergency hotline number, we start getting signs on all the doors, all the buildings, letting everybody know that the university is going to be closing," said Lt. Derrell Means. "The Office of Communication notifies all the appropriate news channels so they can get [the word] broadcasted out. In this particular incident, once the building was locked down, we went into a total lock down situation where all access codes were deactivated." Although a few students did show up for their classes after 7 p.m., Means said there were no problems during or after the closing of the school. In fact, Means said most of the students that arrived after the university closing gave a positive response.

"It was very unpredictable," Means said. "And, at the time the decision was made by Dr. Staples, [Hurricane Lili] was still very unpredictable. She was already at a category four, and we realized this area was not prepared for a category four. We supported his decision 100 percent." Both Means and Staples said the best way to find out about school closings is to call the university hotline. The hotline is regularly updated, especially when weather or anything else poses a potential threat to the school. The university hotline is (281) 283-2221.

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