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The Rotunda
Friday, July 11, 2025

Hurricane Michael takes Farmville by surprise, like most of east coast

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Located on 2nd St. where flooding took over from the 2.5 inches of rain per hour Farmville received on the evening of Oct. 11. 

Timeline

Hurricane Michael brought 2.5 inches of rain an hour to Farmville and caused power outages at Longwood University on Oct. 11, per Dr. Tim Pierson, vice president for student affairs at Longwood University.

According to Pierson, the university had monitored Hurricane Michael for a few days beforehand and expected rain, but the path of the hurricane shifted and “Michael surprised everybody” and “the storm took a late turn.“ 

Per Pierson, after faculty senate ended and he returned to his office, he received a call from Professor of Music Lisa B. Kinzer about the storm. Based on the information from Kinzer, he called the president’s office for a meeting. 

“I didn't even call the police. I didn't call emergency services. It was happening that quick. You could feel it and so that's when I called the president's office. We have to close, so we immediately got a notice out. At that time it was 5:30ish,” said Pierson. 

Classes were not canceled then according to Pierson, as students were already in evening classes. The group of administrators that determine what to do in emergency situations continued to meet for the next four and a half hours

At 5:26 p.m. on Thursday, an email from Longwood went out that all evening activities were canceled. At 5:28 p.m. an email announced that the Farmville Area Bus (FAB) stopped its services and at 5:49 p.m. an email announced that the town of Farmville “requested all vehicles stay off the roads until conditions improve.” 

At 8:16 p.m. Pierson sent an email announcing that Friday’s classes were cancelled, although the dining hall would be open. 

Per Pierson, some students who lived off main campus were still on campus after the FAB stopped, so shuttles were arranged. 

“Anybody that could get to the library, (we had) go there, and then we would shuttle folks back to wherever they needed to go,” Pierson said. 

Aftermath

During the hurricane, several campus buildings flooded, per Pierson. Willet Hall, Wygal Hall, Bedford Hall, Curry Hall, the Communication Studies and Theatre Arts Center (CSTAC) and Upchurch University Center (UUC) all had water. Curry Hall had water running through the elevator shaft and sandbags protected Willet Hall to an extent. 

Bedford Hall Hurricane Michael

Bedford Hall had major flooding in the basement forcing supplies to be moved immediately during the storm. 

“We opened up Willet (Hall) over fall break for faculty who were in the area to be able to come in and shower because so many were stranded here with no power and couldn't shower (at home),” Pierson said. 

According to Pierson, supplies in Bedford Hall had to be moved immediately during the storm. 

“We had to move some of the art supplies that were down in the lower level of the art building and lower level of Bedford,” Pierson said. 

UUC was temporarily affected but not seriously damaged, per Pierson. 

“Food service happened to be in the building anticipating the opening and so they and housekeeping worked about getting that water up immediately.” 

According to Susan Sullivan, director of the university center and student activities, the hurricane did not delay the soft opening for UUC, but the process of moving in was delayed. 

“It delayed us by a day because we weren't able to finish the move on Monday, so on Friday so we ended up actually finishing a lot of it,” Sullivan said. “We had most of the stuff that we needed over here on Wednesday and Thursday before the rain.” 

According to Jean Wilwohl, director of housing, some Longwood managed housing experienced power outages and flooding during the hurricane. 

“Part of the main campus was out for a brief period of time that evening, but that was back on the same evening that the storm came in,” Wilwohl said. 

Per Wilwohl, Longwood Landing’s power was restored that evening as well. Lancer Park and Longwood Village were out of power until the next morning. Friday evening Lancer Park experienced another power outage from a blown transformer around 10:30 p.m. and power was restored again to Lancer Park Saturday morning. 

According to Wilwohl, many apartments had minor leaks and water damage, but only five apartments will require serious remediation. Students have been relocated for six weeks while a restoration company removes drywall and redoes carpeting.

Per Pierson, between 15 and 20 students had to be relocated. 

According to Wilwohl, the apartments were in Lancer Park North and South, and most of the residents were relocated within Lancer Park, although one group requested to be relocated to Longwood Village and was placed there. Damages were assessed by Servpro, a company that does water damage restoration and students who had to be moved were contacted. Once the apartments are restored, the students will be allowed to return or stay in their new assignments.

Per Pierson, housekeeping worked overnight all weekend to clean up the less damaged apartments before students returned. 

Although no buildings were damaged on campus, according to Pierson, four trees came down on Longwood’s campus. One leaned on Lancaster Hall, but did not damage the building. An arborist was brought in to assess the health of the trees that were partially downed and those deemed unhealthy were taken down. The lost trees will be replaced. There is no estimate yet on the monetary cost to Longwood. 

trees on Lancaster from Hurricane Michael

A total of four large trees came down during the storm including one leaning on Lancaster Hall was removed and did not damage the building. 

Per Pierson, several roads and areas of Farmville flooded as well and the Appomattox River overflowed. Electricity was lost in much of Farmville and many trees went down. Areas flooded included the parking lot by Longwood Landings. 

Per Pierson, Longwood University is not responsible for personal possessions of students damaged by the storm, including cars and textbooks. Students must rely on their own insurance for personal belongings. 

“So if it's furnishings or anything like that in a building or computers that are part of the building that's within the university's coverage, the kind of coverage that any state institution has,” said Pierson.  

Reactions

Pierson said that most of the feedback he received from students was that they would have preferred classes were canceled earlier on Thursday. 

Per a Rotunda survey of locals of Farmville, students at Longwood University and Hampden-Sydney College, 65.5 percent of those surveyed felt their institution could have done more, while 19.7 percent were not sure and 14.8 percent said no. 

Among those who reported that their institution should have done more, namely Longwood University, as most of the respondents were students of Longwood University, common suggestions included earlier warnings, earlier closings and specific warnings about moving cars from flood-prone lots. A handful reported that their cars had suffered damage. 

Of those surveyed, 63.9 percent reported losing power for anywhere between a few minutes and several days. 

A little more than a fifth (20.5 percent) of respondents said that their residence was damaged, while another 13.9 percent said they were not sure if it had been damaged or not. Several students noted that there were leaks in their apartments and water damage. 

“Strong winds created a leak through my kitchen window, soaked the wall behind my sink and created a leak under my sink that continued to spread all over my kitchen floor during the rain,” said Hannah Selfridge, a business senior at Longwood University who's home on first avenue was affected by the storm. 

Other students said they had issues with their windows, particularly in Curry Hall. 

“The window in my room flew off the track,” said Tyreicq Wilson-Jones, a criminal justice sophomore at Longwood University. 

Some students also said their possessions were damaged by the water. 

According to Dalton Hall, English senior and resident assistant at Hampden-Sydney College (H—SC), electricity went out Thursday and water was lost there on Friday for about 12 hours. Per Hall, 27 trees on campus were lost. 

According to H-SC junior foreign affairs major Keifer Pfister, the power was not restored there until Saturday afternoon and only one building, the Tiger Athletic Club, was hit by a tree with minor damages. One car was hit by a tree, but no one was hurt by the falling branches. A few students had minor injuries from other incidents in the storm. 

Per Hall, the college closed its administrative offices at 2 p.m. on Thursday although classes were still held. There was minor flooding in some academic buildings. 

“It didn't seem to affect classes really,” Hall said. “There's no, there was no AC, which was pretty awful, but there were fewer students in class. I think they might've been using the storm as an excuse not to come, but the professor was clear that we would have class regardless of the weather.” 

Both Longwood University and Hampden-Sydney College resumed classes as normal on Wednesday, Oct. 17 after their fall breaks ended. 

Follow The Rotunda for updates. 

Located on 2nd St. where flooding took over from the 2.5 inches of rain per hour Farmville received on the evening of Oct. 11. 


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