Safety first, then compassion

President Leebron kept families informed during storm

BY MIKE WILLIAMS
Rice News staff

The president’s children, like so many others in and around Houston Friday night, slept in closets.

“The kids had their sleeping bags in there, and in some ways they had a good time since they slept through most of the storm,” Rice President David Leebron said of the night Hurricane Ike came to call. “For us, as for most families, there was a lot of uncertainty about what was actually going to happen. We had our immediate family and my in-laws with us and, in part because our house has so many windows, our children and some others slept in the closets.”

DAVID LEEBRON

As one of the key people who, along with Dean of Undergraduates Robin Forman, had to keep concerned parents and friends of Rice students up-to-date, Leebron was busy calming their fears before, during and after the storm. This turned out to be especially important against the backdrop of media coverage that emphasized the worst of the storm’s effects, whether or not they were in Houston itself.

At the same time, Leebron monitored the campus situation by participating in regular conference calls with the Rice Crisis Management Team (CMT). “The team, at the height of things, was meeting every three hours by phone,” he said. “After many lost electricity, they were calling in from their running cars to keep their cell phones charged.”

That constant communication was key to the university’s ability to plan for and then deal on the spot with the hurricane and its effects. “I think our planning has been great,” Leebron said. “The people on the CMT, headed by (Vice President for Administration) Kevin Kirby, think very carefully in advance about the kinds of situations we might face and how we’re going to deal with them.”

Leebron said the university has learned from each crisis and from drills. “After Hurricane Rita, we convened to see what we had learned, and we discovered a lot of things that could have been done better,” he said. “This time, we were able to handle those things.

“What our experience during Ike shows is that we have an extraordinary leadership team and staff, who think through issues in advance and bring creativity and a ‘can do’ attitude to each problem as it unfolds. They are amazingly dedicated to the well-being of the Rice community.”

In fact, he said, many more staff and faculty members than he had anticipated stepped up to help. “There was tremendous spirit across the campus, and though we tried to limit the number of people we asked to help out this time, we learned there were others ready to chip in,” said Leebron.

Leebron and his wife, University Representative Y. Ping Sun, spent the hours just before the storm visiting undergraduate students in the residential colleges and graduate students sheltered in Janice and Robert McNair Hall and Rice Memorial Center. Leebron also wrote regular messages to parents that were posted on rice.edu to help ease their anxiety about what their children were experiencing.

As the storm passed, Leebron slept a bit and then went right back to work. “We came out around lunchtime to visit the colleges and graduate student shelter, and we found people in pretty good spirits,” he recalled. “People were safe, and the food services people — Mark Ditman and his crew — did a tremendous job keeping everybody fed. He made sure people all across the campus were really taken care of.

“I give a lot of credit to them and to Barbara White Bryson and her Facilities and Engineering team who, at some risk to themselves, kept everybody safe. The college masters and deans Forman and (Paula) Sanders did an extraordinary job working directly with the students who were being sheltered.”

One difficult post-storm issue was child care for faculty and staff whose children were unable to return to closed Houston public schools. A temporary sports camp for kids 6 to 11 years old was set up at the Recreation Center Thursday. Human Resources also reminded employees about benefits and other backup options for child care. Public Affairs provided updated and information about a range of services — showers, laundries, ice, carpools, hot meals, to name a few — in daily e-mail updates and at rice.edu.

“We were glad to be able to help out the Rice community that way,” Leebron said. “There are many problems to deal with in the aftermath of a major storm like Ike, and we’re doing our best to help all of our employees and students deal with them. People showed great courage before, during and after the storm — many returned to campus Tuesday despite having no power and damage to their homes, and we’re doing everything we can to help them out.”

While campus life returns to normal, he acknowledged the challenges ahead, particularly for off-campus students and employees who are without electricity and are having trouble finding gasoline. Leebron’s own home lost power and suffered some water damage.

“We realize some in our community had to evacuate and many are facing serious challenges as they try to recover. But I believe that the Rice community is both resilient and compassionate. We have shown we can face the full force of a storm like Ike and get back on our feet within days, and we also have shown, and will continue to show, the caring and compassion this kind of situation calls for. This isn’t the result of just a few people; it’s the result of the remarkable group of individuals who make up this great community.”