Several Georgia colleges and universities are working around the clock to recover from the damage caused last week by Hurricane Helene.
Augusta and Valdosta State universities, as well as Brewton Parker, East Georgia State and Paine colleges, canceled classes and other operations this week. Several schools said they hope to resume classes on Monday.
Some schools are largely without electricity or water. Each has structural damage. Most students have been told to stay off campus. A few campuses have lost count of the number of downed trees.
How to help victims of Hurricane Helene
Brewton Parker’s soccer team, which was in Mississippi before the storm, was rerouted to a church in Warner Robins where food and lodging was being provided until students can safely return to campus. Brewton Parker, a private college with about 650 students, is located near Vidalia, about 80 miles from Warner Robins.
At Paine College in Augusta, alumni are raising money for repairs and have set up accounts to accept contributions on Cash App and PayPal. More than 75% of the campus was without electricity as of Tuesday afternoon. Requests for assistance been made to the state’s two U.S. senators, said Michael Thurmond, its board chair and DeKalb County chief executive officer. The historically Black college is a private school with about 365 students. Like many private, liberal arts HBCUs, it has operated under narrow financial margins, which Thurmond said in an interview “makes a challenging situation even more difficult.”