Arcadia University hunkered down and waited out Hurricane Irene over the weekend. New students who had just moved in got a very special orientation experience, bonding with slumber parties in the hallways, board games in the Grey Towers Castle, box lunches and lots of snacks, and more. View President Tobey Oxholm‘s shots of the Class of 2015 “taking the world by storm.”

“Hurricane Irene gave me an opportunity to bond with my class. In the lock down, my whole residence hall became so close. Now we go to all of the activities and events together,” says Olivia Jannuzzi. “The orientation groups keep you really busy and keep you from feeling homesick. It’s usually when I’m not doing much that I get homesick, but here I always have an event to attend or look forward to.”

“It was a good way to get know people,” adds Amie Fye ’15, who notes that though the hurricane created a great deal of anxiety to the region, she wasn’t worried within the sturdy halls of Arcadia. “We were just playing games and having fun and getting to know each other this weekend—it wasn’t bad at all.”

One alum, Bernice Wendell Jeffrey ’42 ’10H, recalled the hurricane of 1938, which did a lot more damage than Irene. “I certainly remember the catastrophic 1938 storm that wiped out freshman week and did major damage in my hometown of Fairfield, Conn. One of the weather analysts I heard (before the storm) compared the possibility that Irene might turn violent to the 1938 hurricane, which he described as the worst one to hit Long Island and New England in recent memory.”

Arcadia and its students emerged from Irene with new memories and thankful that Hurricane Irene’s punch provided little more than a small amount of flooding and some power outages. Special thanks go to all those who worked exceptionally hard this weekend to keep Arcadia afloat, including Student Affairs; Dining Services; Facilities and Grounds; Library Information and Technology; and Public Safety.