Hurricane and wildfire seasons have interrupted the beginning of an already challenging fall semester at colleges in Texas, Louisiana and California.
As if the COVID-19 pandemic isn’t a big enough challenge on its own, colleges in California, Texas and Louisiana are preparing to weather hurricanes and fires, and in some cases evacuate students who have just returned to campus for the fall semester.
More than 7,000 wildfires have raged in California since the beginning of fire season this month, scorching more than 1.6 million acres of land. Many of the fires were started by a lightning storm on Aug. 17 in the northern part of the state.
The CZU Lightning Complex fire — ignited with a lightning strike on Aug. 16 — is burning just a mile north of the University of California, Santa Cruz, campus. The fire is 19 percent contained.
The university encouraged students to evacuate proactively if they were able, according to Scott Hernandez-Jason, a university spokesperson. More than 40 students were evacuated to San José State University on Saturday, 36 miles northeast of the UC Santa Cruz campus.
“As we moved into the mandatory evacuation, we worked to do everything in a way that would align with COVID protections: masks, physical distancing and more,” Hernandez-Jason said in an email.