Page 133 - The First Fifty Years

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THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD 127

levels of buildings. The tunnels also are equipped with pumps to
remove any such stray water. The pumps connect to the storm
drains. The storm drains connect to Brays Bayou.

On the evening of June 9, however, Brays Bayou filled to its
banks, and the storm drains filled to their walls. The pumps in
the University of Houston tunnel system had no place to disgorge
the water now rapidly accumulating in the tunnels. The weight
and force of huge accumulations of water are almost
unimaginable.

The tunnel to the basement of the Law Center had filled full.
Then, the doors holding the accumulated water out of the
building failed. Into the basement floors of the several Law
Center buildings, courtesy of Tropical Storm Allison, swept a
tidal wave, pushing aside everything in its path.

The first victim of the surging waters was the lower level of
the Law Center’s John M. O’Quinn Law Library.60 The entire
contents of the library’s lower level, including Government
Documents, State Reporters, the Judge John R. Brown Papers,61
the International and Comparative Law collections, and one of
the nation’s best Admiralty Law collections, instantly suffered
nearly irreparable injury.

When the chair of the school’s Facilities Planning and Policy
Committee, Craig Joyce, observed the scene of devastation at
first light the next morning,62 all of the books in all of the
collections, and all of the tables, chairs, shelves, and other
furnishings pushed aside by the tidal wave as it had swept
through, were submerged in 12 feet of water. Only a model ship,
formerly on display in the Admiralty Collection, seemed to have
kept its wits. It floated serenely on top of the underground lake
that was now the lower level of the O’Quinn Law Library.

The waters of Allison had not stopped, however, at the
library’s walls. They had proceeded to the basements of other
buildings, destroying also the Law Center’s HVAC system. The
entire complex was now not only a disaster site, but also
completely defenseless against the mold and mildew of a Houston
summer.

On the morning of June 10, 2001, the University of Houston
Law Center was closed to all but emergency workers, the director
of the library, and the chair of the facilities committee. No one
else could access anything. Not faculty. Not staff. Not students
attending summer classes. And not the members of Houston Law
Review.

Notwithstanding all of the advances of Decade 4, was this
how the Great Leap Forward would end? With Houston Law