Several Area Students Still Unaccounted For
POSTED: 6:53 am CDT September 1, 2005
UPDATED: 8:03 am CDT September 1, 2005
CHICAGO -- A group of Chicago-area students stranded by Hurricane Katrina arrived home early Thursday.
About 30 students who attend Dillard University in New Orleans rode a bus home and were met by their families at about 1 a.m., NBC5's Lisa Tutman reported.
The students were evacuated from New Orleans Saturday and taken to another school located six hours away, where they stayed in a gymnasium.
"We were watching everything in the news and saw everything going on," student Sade Collins said.
The students were told to pack three days worth of supplies, which means much of their belongings may be destroyed.
"I was very concerned and so I'm just excited they're home and safe. I was worried because they said they lost everything, but I'm just happy they're alive," parent Janet Goodwin said.
The students are now concerned about their educational future. A Dillard University official said the students will be able to attend classes in Chicago schools until they're able to go back.
"We could be out of school anywhere from three weeks to a month," student Courtney Brookins said.
Several other Chicago-area families have yet to hear from their kids at school in New Orleans.
Four Chicago students are trapped inside their dormitory at Xavier University in New Orleans.
Alice Glenn's daughter, Brittany Harris, is on the sixth floor of a women's dormitory at the school.
"It's a horrible, horrible feeling not to know. For the water to be that high up and the sewage ... they have no lights, no phone, no nothing," Glenn said.
Glenn has heard from her 18-year-old daughter twice -- once on Monday to say the water was rising, and Tuesday night on a dying cell phone telling her not to worry.
"She told me to calm down, that she hadn't been hurt, but they were trapped because the water was too high. She said, 'Mama, promise me you'll get someone to get me out of here.' I told her I'd try," Glenn said.
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Sunday, September 4th 2005 at 10:49PM
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