Hurricane Harvey is now downgraded to a tropical storm, but colleges in the Houston-Galveston area have canceled classes at least through Monday, according to the Houston Chronicle.
Baylor College’s Diana R. Garland School of Social Work is closed on Monday. The University of Houston, including its Katy and Sugar Land campuses, will remain closed through Wednesday, but dorms are open for the 2,000 to 8,000 campus residents expected to remain through the storm. The university’s downtown campus is closed through Wednesday; the UH Emergency Operations Center is monitoring the storm and is staffed 24/7. Rice, Sam Houston State, and Texas Southern Universities are closed, as are Galveston and Houston Community Colleges. South Texas College of Law Houston will be closed through Wednesday. Many institutions, such as Rice University, have emergency alerts on their websites, urging families not to come to campus. Lone Star College will be closed through Tuesday, the Houston Chronicle reported; the University of St. Thomas is closed Monday.
Colleges in the Texas Coastal Bend, the deep curve around the Gulf of Mexico, have also announced closures. Texas A&M at Corpus Christi will be closed until September 5, according to the Corpus Christi Caller-Times.
Rainfall from the storm could reach 50 inches, the highest ever recorded in Texas, according to the Weather Channel.
Last year the Texas Tribune and ProPublica, working with university scientists, published an investigation into what could happen if the Texas coast were struck by a major storm. (The Tribune updated that article here.) The disaster the news organizations predicted could now come true, according to the Columbia Journalism Review.
The Red Cross for the Texas Gulf Coast Region has updated information about shelters and donations, which can also be made through the Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston and a Hurricane Harvey Relief Fund established by the Jewish Federations of North America. Seton Hall University, which has some 30 students from the region on its campus in New Jersey, is fund-raising to assist victims of Harvey. “Our prayers are with everyone touched by the storm, " said Laurie A. Pine, director of media relations, in an email.
Update (8/28/17, 5:30 a.m.): South Texas College of Law Houston’s closing days were added to this post, and updated at 3:30.
Update (8/28/17, 1 p.m.): The information about Seton Hall University’s students from the flood zone was updated.
