In early October, Hurricane Ian made landfall and devastated southwest Florida, with coastal cities like Fort Myers taking the brunt of the hit. While Volusia didn’t incur the worst of Ian’s wrath, the county did experience severe weather conditions and unprecedented flooding due to the slow-moving nature of the storm.
While the main Daytona State campus did not come through wholly unscathed, it did manage to avoid the height of Ian’s destruction. There was, however, a concern with the combination of an exceptionally violent storm and a brand-new residence hall on campus.
Shakyra Carson, newly appointed Residence Life Coordinator, remained on campus during the storm with the little over sixty students, out of two hundred fifty-two current permanent residents of the hall, who didn’t evacuate.
“We actually did pretty good,” Carson said. “I think we lost power towards the end of it for a day or two.” She explained that the student residents remained in high hopes during the storm, spending time together on the first floor. “We just played games and watched the weather go by,” she said.
Minor issues were reported, like the windows leaking and the prolonged ringing of a fire alarm at one point, but the hall did not sustain any serious damage.
Carson explained that every student resident has an evacuation plan in place in the instance of severe weather or similar emergencies and that she stayed in touch with students who did evacuate to make sure they made it to their destinations safely.
She also explained that the situation “wasn’t a scramble” and that they “had a plan in place, and just went through the steps.”
As for the rest of the campus, a multitude of protocols and procedures are in place for emergencies such as Ian. DSC’s Critical Incident Management Team starts meeting at the first sign of severe weather approaching. The Marketing Team starts posting necessary information on the college website and social media immediately, and Campus Safety starts recording information from the 506-HELP line, (386) 506-4357.
“Prior to the storm, we do a lot of stuff that you do for your home,” Russel Gibbons said. “Fuel vehicles, secure loose objects that could be blown by the wind, etc.”
Gibbons is the Campus Safety Manager. He also stated that they fueled the generators that power Campus Safety and the campus’s main computer network system, and that a maintenance inspection was performed on the generators as well.
Damages on campus were mostly minor, including debris from trees, some light water intrusion, some fencing down, and wet ceiling tiles.
The most affected building was the News-Journal Center, which had “significant water intrusion that came in through the roof due to damage,” Gibbons said. Also, the DSC-UCF Hall sustained some water damage to the second and third floors due to water buildup from the heavy rain.
In both cases, significant mitigation by a contractor was necessary, with the News-Journal Center now needing repairs to the roof.
After a storm passes, campus officials meet to discuss the state of the campuses, messages to relay to students and staff, as well as what services can be provided to students and staff. They continue to meet daily until the decision to reopen is made.
Gibbons also said Facility Services would have their hands full for the next few months and that the campus has applied for FEMA benefits in an attempt to recoup some insurance deductibles, a process which can “go on for years after the storm.”
DSC publishes a hurricane guide on the college’s website each year, and this year’s guide can be found here.
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Tim Blalock
Editor-in-chief