It’s times like these.

Today, William & Mary’s campus exists as a literal expression of the idiom – “the calm before the storm” – all students who live on campus have now either gone back home or are taking shelter in a friend’s off-campus house or apartment, facilities management and residence life offices are checking dorms to make sure they’re empty, and faculty and staff are at home, with their families and friends, praying that Hurricane Irene doesn’t end up as bad as it looks that it will be. And I’m included in that group – sitting here in my house, in Franklin, Virginia, waiting for the storm to begin. My family and I have stocked up on water, water filters, bread, granola bars, fruit, and even broken out the lanterns that we used when I was in 3rd grade for one of my brother’s infamous Boy Scout camping trips (the only one that I ever went on).

Living in Southern Virginia for the past 21 years, I’ve experienced two major hurricanes – Hurricane Floyd and Hurricane Isabel. And if you google my hometown, you’ll easily see that many of the things that come up are related to the extensive damages that occurred as a result of both of these. During Hurricane Floyd (which was in 1999), we were all without power (and school) for 3 weeks, on the national news regularly, had to make phone calls from an at&t trailer set up in the hospital parking lot, and our Main Street (located downtown) was under 12 feet of water. During Hurricane Isabel (which was in 2003), we were without power for about a week, on the national news again, and although there wasn’t as extensive flooding, the area of my hometown known as “The Pines” didn’t have a reason to be named “The Pines” anymore – aka hundreds (if not thousands) of trees fell down, often blocking roads or damaging houses. So, when we got our e-mail from William & Mary that said we were evacuating, as I tell my OA boys – “I don’t play those games” which means I left yesterday evening at 6 pm. I quickly left Swem (where I was being a responsible student and printing out the mass amounts of reading I have for class), packed up necessities, locked up my house, and bounced.

Anyway, the moral of this story isn’t to digress about the ridiculous previous experiences I’ve had with hurricanes in my hometown, but to realize how much the community of William & Mary comes together in times like this. Within 30 minutes of the campus-wide e-mail being sent out, I had three options of places to go other than home. And those options weren’t from friends – they were all from higher-ups at William & Mary – one from my advisor (who wanted to help facilitate students in their adventures getting home), one from my wonderful boss this summer, and the final one from another Dean at the Admission Office. It’s things like that that make me remember why I came here – because it’s not just the fact that I texted all of my OA boys to make sure they were safe and had places to stay, or the fact that a good friend went to my house and put my potted plant and garden flag inside because I forgot to, or the fact that people who have PhDs and are fancy Deans of Admission offer me places to stay. It’s the fact that when the Tribe is in danger, we all pull together and make sure that we protect our own – that’s our common interest – each other.

So, stay safe this weekend, friends – and most importantly, I’ll give you the advice that my dad gives me all the time – don’t be stupid.

xoxo.

Kylee