News

Hurricane victim's whirlwind odyssey lands him at Metro

By Erin Williams
ewilli47@mscd.edu

Eugene Algiene awoke on a Saturday morning not too long ago, thinking about how he was going to spend his day.

"I woke up that morning wondering what we were going to do. Maybe we'll go rollerblading," Algiene said.

But the rollerblading plans were scrapped once he and his wife, Anita, watched the news to learn that the hurricane was going to be more devastating than originally projected. That was Aug. 27 in New Orleans, two days before Hurricane Katrina hit the Louisiana coast.

The University of New Orleans graduate student and his wife decided to pack their car with a few important belongings and their cat and get out of town right away. They headed for Denver, where Algiene had once attended Metro and would again find himself enrolled.

Their first stop on the road to safety was Jackson, Miss.

"We left with a sense of urgency to avoid traffic problems, but once we got on the road, traffic wasn't that bad," he said.

From there, they continued on to Memphis, Tenn. and finished with a non-stop, 17-hour drive to Denver.

As they were driving away from their home, Algiene was thinking about everything he was leaving behind.

"I was relieved that my wife, my cat and I were safe, but you get attached to things, so it was heart-wrenching to leave them. We left so quickly that all we had were the clothes on our backs and a small suitcase," he said.

"We thought the hurricane would blow over and we would be back in a few days. We had no idea what was actually about to happen."

Algiene, who graduated from Metro in 1993, decided to come back to Denver because he and his wife have family here, who offered them a place to stay. Since he wouldn't be returning to the University of New Orleans-where he was working on a graduate degree in accounting-anytime soon, he popped in at Metro just to check out what classes were being offered. The next thing he knew, he was sitting in class the same day he arrived in town, Sept. 1. Now he's taking general accounting classes here at Metro.

"Metro was very flexible with my situation," he said.

The school waived registration fees and is attempting to reduce his financial burden by allowing him to pay in-state resident tuition. One of his instructors even spent Labor Day with him catching him up on lessons he had missed and preparing him for a test the following day.

He has noticed a few changes at Metro since he left campus 12 years ago.

"It's more modernized with video projectors and speakers in the classrooms. It's very high-tech. Even the campus is more pretty and more inviting," he said.

He also appreciates the Tivoli being used as a student resource center, which he finds, "really cool," instead of the shopping mall it used to be when he attended.

Now that Algiene is settling into Colorado, he's thinking about the trip back to New Orleans that he'll make with his wife in the next few weeks. They want to see what's left of their second-story apartment and hopefully rescue a few more personal belongings, but they don't have their hopes up. They've been monitoring their home via satellite over the Internet and are now assured that it's no longer under water.

They are even discussing their move back to New Orleans in the spring. He's not sure if they'll be able to live in their old apartment, due to the threat of mold and toxins that have possibly seeped their way into the walls and wooden cupboards, but that won't stop them from continuing their life where they left off.

In the meantime, Algiene is waiting and watching the progress in New Orleans, and finding comfort in the fact that they escaped safely. And life in Denver again, he said, has been a pleasant experience. "So far, everyone's been really helpful."