The mile-wide Memorial Day weekend tornado that caused so much death and demolition in northeastern Iowa narrowly missed the University of Northern Iowa, but –last– night’s storms and high winds caused all sorts of troubles for the U.N.I. campus. University spokesman James O’Connor says clean-up and repairs are underway:
"The phone system went down and also we have power outages to several of our buildings in central campus. They’re still trying to determine what specific buildings are out. We have several trees down and parts of trees down, blocking some streets and access to some of our parking lots." O’Connor says crews at U-N-I are rushing to get the mess cleared away as they’re expecting a batch of visitors.
He says today U.N.I. is hosting one of its first orientation sessions for the summer, "so folks are scrambling right now to find out what buildings have power and if they need to change where orientation will take place. That’s a big event for us today." He says details of any changes for orientation will be posted on the university website: "www.uni.edu".
O’Connor says the Cedar Falls campus is trying to put its best foot forward for the arriving new students. "Today’s orientation is for transfer students, typically coming from other universities or community colleges. I would assume about 200 or so."
All three of Iowa’s public universities are feeling the brunt of foul weather. Large sections of Ames and Iowa State University have endured flooding for more than a week, while Thursday, flooding in Iowa City forced the University of Iowa to evacuate about 100 summer school students from the Mayflower dorm.