As Hurricane Katrina raged around him, Patrick Bailey could hear the enormous air vents on top of the Recreational Complex crashing five stories to the pavement below.

“When it came through, it was unbelievable,” said Bailey, the director of University Police. “I’ve been through some other hurricanes, and it was nothing like this … Are you scared? Absolutely, you’re scared. If you’re not, something’s wrong with you.”

Bailey, along with Loyola community members who were on campus during the storm or helped in the immediate aftermath, described their experiences to students Tuesday at a talk sponsored by the Loyola International Business Organization, American Marketing Association and Students In Free Enterprise.

After the storm passed, Bailey and nine physical plant employees moved to Mercy Hall where they would live for more than a month while completing repairs to campus.

“We spent 35 days together, me and these guys,” he said, gesturing to the Physical Plant workers in attendance. “And let me tell you, they didn’t get any better looking.”

He and his men watched the water rise until it reached the first speed bump by the Rec Plex; they had no radio or telephone communication.

“One day I saw a kayak floating down Freret Street; the next day it was a canoe and the day after that a motorboat,” he said.

While Bailey watched Freret turn into a river, director of Computer Services Joe Cascio was busy getting Loyola’s servers back online. After 10 days spent in Chicago re-establishing LORA, he and the Information Technology staff moved to the University of Houston, which offered space in its computer center.

“They basically gave us access to everything,” he said. “I wouldn’t even let someone in my computer center unsupervised – especially someone that knows computers.”

By mid-October, the IT team had all of Loyola’s servers back on campus.

Robert LeBlanc, a Loyola alumnus who graduated in 2000, stayed in his native Houma during the storm, but came to New Orleans with his boat and a friend to help with the rescue efforts.

“For [us], it wasn’t a question of if we were going to get there, but how,” he said.

Several days after the storm, LeBlanc boated around picking up stranded residents, some of whom had no food or water for days, and dropping them off at FEMA rescue stations.

LeBlanc said the heroism around him was incredible. At one point, he saw an older gentleman making several trips from Carrollton Avenue to the central business district in a canoe, using a two-by-four as a paddle. A few days later, he met three men who had spent days wandering around in chest-deep water, finding survivors and bringing them to the school shelter.

He said that media reports on the hurricane didn’t convey the “beauty of the human spirit.”

“It was incredible to see the selflessness that I saw,” he said. “Anybody who had the will to be down here … knew that it was very different [from the media’s portrayal].”

Earlier this week, LeBlanc drove through the neighborhoods he floated through in September.

“It’s amazing how you remember every person, and all of their stories and every house,” he said.

Around 100 students and faculty packed into Miller 114 to hear the five speakers, who also included Brenda Joyner, assistant provost of Business Administration and Mary Sue Oehlke, an administrative assistant in Business Administration.

Tania Martinez, finance and economics senior and president of LIBO, said she helped organize the event to thank those who worked hard to bring Loyola back.

“We wanted to recognize the people who made it possible for us to be here today,” she said. “Our campus is almost exactly as it was when we left and it’s thanks to these people.”

Kelly Brown can be reached at [email protected]