University of West Florida orders dorms evacuated on less than a day’s notice

As Hurricane Isaias bore down on the Florida Panhandle, the University of West Florida emailed its roughly 1,500 dorm residents after 8 p.m. telling them campus would close by 7 p.m. the next day. Students were told to unplug appliances, and those with nowhere else to go had a one-hour window the following morning to enter a 'shelter of last resort' that explicitly was not a traditional shelter, with basic and potentially uncomfortable conditions and a strict no-return policy if you left.

Twenty-eight students ended up in that shelter; the university did not let a reporter inside to speak with them. Parents on social media criticized the short notice, and a local church, Olive Baptist, organized members to take in students who had nowhere else to turn, alongside informal arrangements among students' own families.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.