College Campuses Close as Hurricane Dorian Threatens

The storm has already pummeled the Bahamas. Now the US coast prepares.

Written byJef Akst

| 2 min read

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In advance of Hurricane Dorian’s landfall, schools along the US East Coast continue to prepare for the impact.

Starting yesterday (September 2), the College of Charleston in South Carolina cancelled all classes and events and required that students leave campus by noon today. Several schools along the Georgian coast have done the same. The University of Miami, University of Florida in Gainesville, and several other campuses are also closed today, as researchers continue to brace for the impending storm, putting plywood over windows, ensuring the safety of lab animals (sometimes, evacuating them along with the people), and moving equipment out of the path of potential floodwaters.

“Oh yeah we are ready!!” marine biologist Mark Martindale, director of the University of Florida’s Whitney Laboratory for Marine Bioscience in St. Augustine, tells Science. “All windows boarded up and 200 sandbags.”

Hurricane Dorian hovered over the Bahamas over the holiday weekend as a ...

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Meet the Author

Jef Akst
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Jef (an unusual nickname for Jennifer) got her master’s degree from Indiana University in April 2009 studying the mating behavior of seahorses. After four years of diving off the Gulf Coast of Tampa and performing behavioral experiments at the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga, she left research to pursue a career in science writing. As The Scientist's managing editor, Jef edited features and oversaw the production of the TS Digest and quarterly print magazine. In 2022, her feature on uterus transplantation earned first place in the trade category of the Awards for Excellence in Health Care Journalism. She is a member of the National Association of Science Writers.
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