Dillard University President Dr. Walter Kimbrough discusses hurricane preparedness with Inside Higher Education. 

Most colleges made the decision Sunday, before the storm had moved in, to cancel classes Tuesday and Wednesday – the storm’s slow movement later forced officials to shut down campuses Thursday and Friday, too – to give students time to get out. Only Dillard University required students to evacuate.

“I think we made the right call in sending students away so they wouldn’t have to be there in the heat not having power, because I think people in the city now are frustrated with that,” Kimbrough said. “But we need to have a much broader plan to think, ‘What do we do in a situation that is not a category three or four?’