By Janet Raloff
What happens to a medical school when a massive hurricane dumps 6 feet of water into ground floor classrooms just 3 weeks after the start of school? If it’s Tulane Medical School in New Orleans, it gets out of town and sets up shop in Houston.
But just when classes were about to restart after Hurricane Katrina’s unruly visit, Hurricane Rita began bearing down on Tulane’s new home away from home, notes Ian Taylor, the school’s dean. Luckily, Rita left Houston little damaged, so Tulane’s 620 students finally resumed their studies on Oct. 3.