NWA Graduate Weathers Hurricane Ian

Northwest Academy alumnus Kiyosh Arun and his family were forced to evacuate their seaside home in Tampa, Fla. as Hurricane Ian thundered towards the southwest coast of Florida

Arun, who is currently a freshman doing his pre-med track at Tampa University, said that his house, which is located right on the coast, was issued a mandatory evacuation order.

“I had to leave, everybody at my school had to leave,” said Arun.

Arun drove two hours northeast of Tampa with his dad and brother to Ocala where they stayed in a hotel for two nights. Arun followed the news updates, hoping his house would escape the worst of the storm.

“I reassured myself thinking, ‘Florida has lots of hurricanes, we should be fine,’” Arun said.

The storm moved south, however, barely impacting Tampa.

“It wasn’t as bad as what happened in Fort Myers or Naples,” Arun said. “The fact that that could have happened to us was scary.”

Arun returned to Tampa two days later to find little to no damage to his house. His front door was blown open even though it had been deadbolted when they left. There was no water inside the house, but their pool, which they had emptied, had filled up again.

Things were different, however, at Arun’s college dorm. The deluge of rain brought on by the hurricane flooded the building but the water didn’t cause much lasting damage.

“When I walked in, the whole ground was wet, and when I stepped on the rug, the whole thing was drenched,” Arun said. “There were only four rooms which were flooded on the campus, and mine was one of them.”

Repairs were minor and handled by university staff, who dried and shampooed the rug, wet vacuumed the floor and dried the walls.

Arun suspects he might have to get used to hurricanes in the future.

“It’s almost like a snow day back in Portland,” he said. “Now it’s, ‘Oh hurricane, no school!’”