Over six police officers at all times, people going to the hospital, pets, and children fearful of what was to come. Hurricane Irma caused all of this to happen at Palm Harbor University.

The category 5 storm supposedly coming straight at us, swerved at the last minute thankfully, to become a high category one to a low category two here in Palm Harbor. Still, the food was gone and the streets were empty.

Here at PHU, 2,200 people came for safety and stayed in the classrooms

“Building 19, 11, and building 5 are all hurricane rated buildings, so they were built to sustain a category 5 hurricane, so that’s why we used those buildings to the house the residents in,” said Principle Christina Gonzalez

The administration was a big help to all the people staying at the shelters.

“The administration basically was in charge and they helped out a lot,” said Mrs. LaChance.

Kids may have been scared of the storm but thanks to some anonymous donor, kids were able to get their own beanie baby and blanket. To make the kids feel safer they told them that the beanie babies were “hurricane” babies that they had to take care of throughout the storm.

To keep everyone safe there were police officers on campus at all times. Also, for the safety of the people they had Emergency Medical Technicians (EMTs) there too.

Though at first people weren’t allowed to bring their pets, they could bring their own bedding and snacks, while the kitchen supplied the food. Since all of the shelters quickly filled up,the administrators made a decision to let people bring small pets that have a cage.

Even though the storm did not hit us as bad as we thought it would. It’s good all of those people had a safe place to ride out what could have been a disastrous storm.