Keeping Your Head… …Above Water. Thursday, August 25, 2005

Keeping Your Head…

…Above Water

Thursday, August 25, 2005

Alert Line Sticker

Emergency Hotline

Emergency WebsiteThursday, August 25

Friday, August 26, 3 a.m.

Hurricane Katrina weakens to T.S. Katrina following landfall

Friday, August 26, 9 p.m.

Saturday, August 27, 10 a.m.

“In response to Hurricane Katrina's shift to the west, Tulane University will close as of 5 p.m. today, August 27. Classes will resume on Thursday, September 1. Tulane employees should report to work on Wednesday, August 31…..”

Saturday, August 27, 1 p.m.

New Student Convocation

Sunday, August 27, 2 a.m.

Tulane Evacuees at Jackson State

Tuesday, August 30

What Happened• All students safely evacuated

• The President, our Chief Financial Officer and senior communications officer were on campus and the rest of senior team was scattered with no communication and no office

• 6,500 displaced faculty and staff and 13,000 students and 520 displaced medical residents

• University closure for the Fall Semester

• Hospital closures

What Happened• City closure until October, 2005 and reopened with

only fundamental services

• Animals and perishable biological materials in flooded buildings

• Extensive damage to university facilities

• Extensive research losses

• Personal losses of responders

Key Elements of the University Response and Recovery

• Presidential leadership and innovation

• Communication with students, faculty and staff by the web

• Senior leadership team sets up office at the Tulane University School of Business in Houston, Texas

• The Higher Education Community comes to the rescue. Tulane students enroll in 600+ universities

Key Elements of the University Response and Recovery

• Employee registration--93% registered online within two weeks

• University continues to pay full-time employees from August 2005 through December 2005

• The University call center logged 12,600 calls from September 14, 2005 through January 13, 2006.

Disaster Recovery and Continuity Operations for the Legal Staff

• Education: academic credit for students enrolled at other universities around the country, financial aid and tuition payments, and recruitment strategies for faculty and students

• Employment: layoffs, retention plans, payroll, worker’s compensation, employee benefits, FLSA - overtime, vacation, sick leave, FMLA, ADA, OSHA, Warn Act

• Litigation: court filings deferred


• Research: interruption of research, extension of existing grants, waiver of programmatic and financial reporting obligations, permission to submit delayed grant applications, indirect cost recovery, re-establishing an institutional review board and on-going human subjects clinical trials, institutional animal care and use committee and on-going animal studies, contact with Office of Human Subjects Protection, FDA, Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare, NIH, NSF


• Healthcare providers: displaced employed physicians providing services in other states, medical records, liability coverage

• Medical Residents: placed in residency programs at other institutions, CMS reimbursement, accreditation and match


• Federal Emergency Management Administration: project worksheets and documentation required for FEMA recoveries

• Insurance: analysis of insurance policies with respect to coverage, forensic accountants for documentation and valuation of damages


• Bonds: review bond covenants, disclosure statements, make payments as scheduled, limits for debt and post-disaster borrowing, and potential impact on bond ratings

• Contracts with vendors and on-going capital projects: review vendor, architect, construction contracts for termination or force majeure clauses


• To achieve financial stability, the University implemented a sweeping reorganization including the eliminating educational programs, consolidation of schools and termination of faculty.

• Legal issues: employment claims, teach out programs, accreditation, endowment reviews, and athletic program reductions


• Campus rebuilt by January 2006 reopening

• Rented a cruise ship to house faculty, staff and students

• Chartered a K-12 school near the Tulane campus

Campus Information Sessions

Students Retrieve Their Stuff

Encouraging Returns

• 10,000+ students back for Spring ‘06

• 87% of the full-time students returned

• 85% of the freshman class returned

• 3,700 faculty and staff back at work

Lesson Learned

• Better integrated with city emergency services---Use of Tulane for housing first

responders---Re-entry for essential personnel at

earliest possible date---Senior leadership added to city communications network

Lessons Learned

• Campus technology and communications

---added text messaging service

---moved back-up servers to Philadelphia

---communications personnel all have broadband cards and internet phone accounts

Lessons Learned

• Take matters into your own hands and don’t hesitate to make the hard decisions

• Provide immediate and decisive legal advice

• Stay laser-focused on survival, recovery and renewal and never lose sight of the future

Documents

Keeping Your Head… …Above Water. Thursday, August 25, 2005