Page 140 - The First Fifty Years

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134 HOUSTON LAW REVIEW

had been home to HLR, both spiritually and physically, for
almost 40 years.

For now, physical proximity no longer was possible.
Throughout the summer of 2001, the Law Center’s
administrative functions, under the direction of Dean Nancy B.
Rappaport, would be housed at the University’s basketball arena,
where they operated out of a combination of concession stands
and (inaptly named) “luxury boxes.” Instruction went on. Despite
the chaos at UHLC’s own facilities, students missed only two
days of classes that summer. Courses were taught in faculty
homes, in law firm conference rooms, and in spare classrooms at
South Texas College of Law (“STCL”). Because the school’s Legal
Information Technology department had managed to move Law
Center servers above water at the height of the storm, e-mail as a
lifeline to the institution’s many constituencies, including
incoming students, was preserved.

Thanks to UH, FEMA, and one astonishingly dedicated Law
Center alumnus,93 in the course of the summer the water was
emptied from the lower levels of the buildings, power was
provided externally, and cool air arrested the spread of mold and
mildew. On the morning of August 21, 2001, the two above-
ground levels of the Law Center,94 housing classrooms and
faculty offices, reopened for business, and the new academic year
began as scheduled.

Houston Law Review, however, was still on the lam, with no
immediate hope of return. In all, Boards 39 and 40 would remain
homeless, at least in terms of accommodations within the Law
Center, for 13 months.

As to UHLC’s two mostly subterranean levels, Allison had
been an equal opportunity destroyer. The Basement Floor, which
housed the lower level of the law library and the utilities for all
of the levels above, had flooded up, thanks to its tunnels. The so-
called Ground Floor, where HLR officed, had flooded down, as
surging waters outside the buildings flowed into the below-
ground half of that level.

Little in HLR’s offices remained salvageable, even when
Board 39 was allowed a brief exploratory visit. Records and files?
Soaked. Volumes of statutes and reports? Drowned, below the
three-foot level to which the floodwaters had risen. Furniture?
Ruined. Computers? All wrecked.

Led by an editor in chief and managing editor who had the
preceding weekend repainted offices the Review would never
again occupy,95 Board 39 went to work. Kickoff meetings were
held at members’ homes. Coordination was accomplished online