![\"Danielle](\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2017\/09\/170913_Hurricane_Students_0051_LR.jpg\")
<\/a>On campus as Hurricane Harvey hit her hometown of Sugar Land, Texas, Danielle Fournier ’18 said the support she received was “really, really profound.” (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n
Among the residence coordinators and student affairs staff here on campus, \u201cI was the only one in that group that had strong roots\u201d in the region impacted by Harvey, Danielle says. \u201cAnd the Bates community reaching out to me and lifting me up was really, really profound.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody wanted to know how my family was doing and people would ask, and give me space to process some of that,\u201d she continues, \u201cespecially in the tense moments when we weren\u2019t really sure what was going to happen. The administration was particularly supportive.\u201d<\/p>\n
As it happened, Harvey\u2019s floodwaters rose to mere inches away from the Fourniers\u2019 house \u2014 but never got inside. “We had very, very little damage to the house structure as a whole,\u201d says a grateful Fournier.<\/p>\n
In addition to a fair amount of stress, Harvey handed Fournier some food for thought vis-\u00e0-vis her studies. An economics major, she\u2019s planning her thesis around the aftermath of the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, likely with a focus on an intriguing issue: the restoration of trust in the Louisiana oyster fishery following the massive spill.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe time frame for the reconstruction of an industry is what I\u2019m studying for my thesis, but also something that I\u2019m observing in my city. That parallel has been really interesting,\u201d she says. \u201cHow long does it take to rebuild your sense of normalcy?\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/a>An unidentified kayaker and observers in Danielle Fournier’s neighborhood in Sugar Land, Texas, during Hurricane Harvey on Aug. 27. (Juli Fournier)<\/p><\/div>\n
While only a handful of Bates students were affected by the back-to-back hurricanes Harvey and Irma, all said they felt the lift of concern and support from the college.<\/p>\n
Andrea Russo \u201919 of Cheshire, Conn., was participating in a study-abroad program (directed by Heidi Hertler ’89) on one of the Turks and Caicos Islands when Irma cropped up. Forced to evacuate a field station on sparsely populated South Caicos \u2014 and with her School for Field Studies program on the island ultimately canceled \u2014 she\u2019s back at Bates, living in one of the Campus Avenue dorms and taking courses.<\/p>\n
During a tense lead-up to the storm through Labor Day weekend, and fast-paced evacuation planning as Irma approached, \u201cthere was always someone from Bates in contact with me,\u201d says Russo, an environmental studies major.<\/p>\n