Megan Bandi waited three years to study at Coastal Carolina University, as part of Waynesburg’s marine biology program. Then, three weeks into her first semester there, she had to evacuate campus because of a natural disaster.

With Costal Carolina University only nine miles from Myrtle Beach, Bandi said the school was in the direct path of Hurricane Florence. As the storm approached the East Coast last week, Bandi and one other Waynesburg University student evacuated campus and traveled back to Pennsylvania on Sept. 11. The school had canceled classes following Monday and Bandi said she wanted to get ahead of everyone else.

“We decided to leave Monday night because we knew it was going to be a bad storm,” Bandi said. “We figured they would evacuate [campus] soon and we wanted to avoid as much traffic as possible.”

During the trip home on Monday night, Bandi said Costal Carolina University sent an email officially instructing everyone to evacuate campus by Tuesday morning. Bandi said the evacuation was hectic as they had to determine when to leave and where to go, but it wasn’t unexpected.

“I felt at peace with it,” Bandi said. With all of the recent media coverage on Hurricane Florence, Bandi said she and her classmates were expecting the university to take action. “We figured they were going to evacuate us.”

Dr. Wayne Rossiter, director of the Marine Biology program, said that this wasn’t the first time students had to evacuate a school in the program. With only two students embedded at Coastal Carolina University, Rossiter said it wasn’t determining the best course of action to avoid Hurricane Florence.

“We stay in really close contact at the individual level with the students,” Rossiter said. “We don’t have that many that are there so I’m able to literally just call them or text them directly and find out how they are doing and what their plans are.”

As Rossiter and the students determined how they would avoid the hurricane, Rossiter said he also contacted the chair of the department at the university.

“I also reached out to the chair of the department in Costal Carolina to make sure everything was fine, not just with her personally in the program, but with our students,” Rossiter said. “It’s more of a matter of making sure that there is a plan that our students got out on a timely manner.”

Without knowing how much damage would be done to the school, Bandi said she brought most of her belongings home.

“The beds are all lifted, so anything that was on the floor I ended up just putting on my bed,” Bandi said.

Even though the dangerous conditions have lessened in South Carolina, Bandi said the university has not yet alerted students to the condition of the school or their rooms.

“We don’t know yet,” Bandi said. “I don’t know if they have assessed [the damage] because [on Monday] the only people who will be allowed on campus are essential personnel.”

On Sept. 17, Coastal Carolina University President, David DeCenzo released a statement which said the school had not sustained significant damage during the hurricane. According to the release, an official start date has not been set yet to resume classes, but on Sept. 20 the school will release “final plans for resuming normal operations.”