Having moved from New Orleans to Baltimore just a week ahead of the storm, Garey Hyatt dodged Katrina’s wrath. Then God told him to help some students who had been left behind.
Ravaged by Hurricane Katrina, Dillard University remained closed for weeks, disrupting students’ education. Fortunately for some, a former Dillard professor — who had just taken a job teaching at Coppin State University in Baltimore — saw an opportunity to help. He convinced his new school to enroll former Dillard students, at a reduced tuition, so their eduation would not be interrupted. Credit: Getty Images
“Katrina: 20 Years Later” is Word In Black’s series on Hurricane Katrina’s enduring impact on New Orleans, and how Black folks from the Big Easy navigate recovery, resilience, and justice.
In the Christmas 2006 episode of “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip” — a one-season wonder depicting behind-the-scenes life on a Saturday Night Live-style comedy show — the fictional show’s house band deliberately called in sick so that a group of New Orleans musicians fleeing Hurricane Katrina could fill in, collect their salaries, and have holiday money for their families.
The episode could have been inspired by a similar kindness that occurred on the campus of Coppin State University in Baltimore, Maryland, after the storm destroyed the city 20 years ago.
That’s when Garey Hyatt, chair of Coppin’s Department of Visual & Performing Arts — who had just been hired from Dillard University, an HBCU in New Orleans, and moved to Baltimore just days before Katrina slammed into the city — opened Coppin’s doors to Dillard students so the deadly storm would not interrupt their education.
It was almost as if the Dillard students, and Hyatt, were the beneficiaries of divine intervention.
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