Ike causes $3 million in campus damage

By Jocelyn Wright     10/9/08 7:00pm

When it tore through campus in mid-September, Hurricane Ike left $3 million in campus damages in its wake. About two-thirds of the buildings and one-third of the trees on campus were affected, Facilities, Engineering and Planning Manager of Communications Susann Glenn said. Glenn said the majority of the damage was minimal. She said hurricane damage typically involved wet carpet and some broken windows, she said.

Rice is looking at replacing damaged carpets, Renee Block, risk manager for the Vice President for Investments, said.

Although damage was relatively minimal, some buildings on campus faced structural damage, Glenn said. Several windows of the R Room at the stadium were blown out. Part of the brick facade at Brown College was pulled off by the storm. McNair Hall at the Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Management lost some roofing tiles.

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Glenn said Ike trampled a third of the trees on campus. Many trees lost limbs and needed to be pruned, while others were uprooted. Several leaning trees will also be replaced. A few trees were hoisted up and put back into place, however Rice may lose more based on its survival rate. Glenn said the full extent of the damage to the trees would be most evident when the trees went into shock. Overall, Glenn said Rice lost about twenty-five percent of its tree canopy.

Rice is still gathering information about Ike-related damages and repair, but the cost of damages is most likely to be less than Rice's named windstorm deductible (from insurance?), which means Rice will have to cover the costs related to Hurricane Ike, Block said. Currently, the costs are covered by contingency funds and a separate fund that was set up for Ike damages after the storm, she said. Rice has also filed a request for some assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Vice President for Finance Kathy Collins said Rice would pay for any damages not covered by grants and insurance money. Since the details of this plan are not yet finalized, however, Collins said she could not give any specific information on where these funds would come from.

"It's a work in progress," Collins said.

Block said Rice was lucky that Ike had not caused tremendous amounts of damage.

"We're very fortunate that these costs are not terribly high so in all likelihood it will just be absorbed by contingencies that are available to the university," Block said.

She said the post-Ike volunteer efforts also did a tremendous amount to minimize the inconveniences caused by damages.

"Everyone, students all the way up to the president, should be congratulated on their efforts volunteering and the work that was done afterwards to really get the campus back up and running," Block said. "All in all it was a great success story.

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