Although most University of Wisconsin students have been sheltered from Hurricane Isabel’s blast, hundreds of UW alumni were affected by the hurricane as they faced inches of standing water, days without electricity, and horrific damage.
One UW alum who graduated in 2001 with a bacteriology degree, Nadia Propp, works at a restaurant on Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. On Wednesday, under pleasant skies, the employees closed down the outside patio, moving all the furniture inside in preparation for the storm.
At her other job where she conducts AIDS vaccine research, the employees were given fliers listing all necessary precautions and preparations.
By noon on Thursday, the city of Baltimore was under a state of emergency. Students were bussed home early, office buildings shut down and businesses were closed.
At the Institute of Human Virology, where Propp works on AIDS vaccine research, the halls were quiet. Propp, however, continued to work until about 4:30 that evening.
“I had work to do … I felt pretty safe,” Propp said.
The heavy weather was not expected to arrive in Baltimore until about midnight. Throughout the day, which began with sunshine, the clouds increased and the winds grew stronger.
When Propp finally finished work, she said the city, usually blaring with car horns and tangled in rush hour traffic, was deserted. The commute home normally takes her 50 minutes; Thursday’s dark drive took only 30 minutes and was eerily silent.
The rain began around 8 p.m. By midnight, Propp admitted, she was a little nervous.
“It was loud … the wind, the rain. It rattled my windows a lot,” Propp said. “I had to use towels and pots and pans because the wind was pushing rain through the edges and seams of my windows.”
Propp, whose bed is near a window in her bedroom, decided it was safer to sleep on the floor, away from the window.
“It sounded like it would shatter any minute,” she said.
Propp’s apartment complex consists of sturdy two story buildings, but she said she could feel shuddering vibrations run through the floor and up the walls as powerful winds surged outside. Top wind speeds in Baltimore reached almost 90 mph.
By Friday morning the heavy rain and strong winds had passed, but many parts of downtown Baltimore had been inundated by four to eight foot wave surges from the Inner Harbor.
With her camera, Propp ventured back into downtown and was amazed by the flooded streets. She lives about eight miles north of downtown Baltimore on higher ground and did not expect to see the waters of the rising Chesapeake advance on the city.
“There were a lot of dazed people walking around downtown,” she said. “I saw this guy kayaking down Light Street.”
Many people living near the Inner Harbor awoke on Friday to find several feet of water lapping through their front doors. Several individuals had to be rescued from their rooftops.
In retrospect, Propp said the ordeal was not traumatizing.
“I didn’t sleep well that night, but always felt safe,” she said.
