University of Houston announcement

President Gogue has determined to close the University of Houston effective 12 noon on Wednesday, September 21, through Sunday, September 25, except for critical staff who have been previously identified as such. This decision comes after assessing the current information available on Hurricane Rita and at the urging of the Mayor and County Judge to ensure the maximum safety of our faculty, students and staff during this emergency.

The President has ordered that the University of Houston campus be evacuated for all dormitory students and that all buildings, including academic and research buildings be evacuated and locked down after 6 p.m. Wednesday night. Researchers are asked to shut down any experiments and all faculty and non-critical staff MUST leave the campus. All buildings will be locked to ensure security. Faculty, staff and students will not be allowed back into the buildings until the emergency has been declared over.

Critical staff members have already been notified if they will be required to either remain on campus or return early during the emergency. The emergency response areas have been designated in the General Services Building and the Center for Public Broadcasting.

Students with transportation and safe locations away from the Houston area are asked to evacuate to those locations today, and if at all possible to seek out any students not from Houston who may not have transportation or a safe place to go. The University will provide buses and is identifying an evacuation location for all students who require it, but any assistance Houston students can supply will be sincerely appreciated by your student friends and colleagues. Dormitory students needing emergency transportation should notify their RA. For area evacuation information and routes check out UH emergency website www.uh.edu/emergency.

We will continue to send updates through the emergency through e-mail and on our website, www.uh.edu. Messages also will be updated on the university¹s main number, 713-743-1000. We have made arrangements for our website and telephone service to be located away from the emergency area if necessary, so they should remain available through this period.

We will announce plans for next week as soon as we get additional information about the impact of the storm.