Hurricane Irene has delayed students’ arrival at the Duke University Marine Lab, but fortunately students will move in to a facility that was mostly undamaged.
Gov. Bev Perdue issued a state of emergency declaration on Aug. 25 for all counties east of Interstate 95—one of which was Carteret County, where the Marine Lab is located. The county remained under the state of emergency disaster declaration as of Sunday night, though the county-wide curfew had been removed.
Following Perdue’s disaster declaration, the Marine Lab’s faculty and staff evacuated the premises before noon on Friday, said Vice President for Human Resources Kyle Cavanaugh. Cavanaugh is also the emergency coordinator for the University.
Students are now scheduled to arrive at the Beaufort, N.C. campus for their orientation Tuesday as opposed to the original start date of today, said Dominick Brugnolotti, assistant director of auxiliary operations for the Marine Lab. Resident assistants arrived Sunday.
“As hurricanes go, we got off lightly,” Brugnolotti said. “Fortunately, we were able to evacuate, and everyone was safe.”
Students will miss two days worth of classes, said Marine Lab RA Ted Phillips, a junior. Phillips added that students will not be as drastically affected as they would have been if this had happened in the Spring, when classes at the lab operate on a block schedule, meeting for four to five hours per day.
The Marine Lab’s facilities have avoided large-scale damage, in part due to thorough preparation, lab administrators said.
The lab’s buildings were boarded up and the boats were taken out of the water, Marine Lab Director Cindy Van Dover wrote in an email Sunday. Damage from the storm was limited to shingles ripped off the roof of the lab’s maintenance building and a broken window in one of the labs.
There was no flooding since the tide was not high enough to bring water into the building, Van Dover noted.
Power is still out in the Beaufort area, but many Marine Lab facilities—including the dining hall and dormitories—are powered by generators, ensuring that they still have power, Van Dover added.
“All in all, the Marine Lab is solid and steadfast in a storm,” she said. “We have a superb and experienced and professional team that works to button [the Marine Lab] up before any storm approaches and to open her up for business as soon as possible.”
Traveling to the site may be somewhat difficult due to the many highway closings in coastal counties caused by falling trees and debris, Brugnolotti said. U.S. Route 70, a major road in the Beaufort area, remained closed due to fallen trees through Sunday.
Though hurricanes will be a concern for students and staff at the Marine Lab through the rest of the hurricane season—which ends in November—Phillips said he believes safety precautions against natural disasters are taken far enough in advance to keep those at the Marine Lab safe.
“I’m not really worried,” he said. “If there is one coming, I’ll have plenty of warning.”
Brugnolotti said he remained confident that the Marine Lab would be able to handle future hurricanes this year based on the response to Irene.
“When you live at the coast, hurricanes are a part of life,” he said. “We’ve had evacuations in the past as well, and in this situation we also had good planning.”
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