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‘Last week I had a city, • and now I don’t’ Disaster strikes close to home for students, Louisiana natives Jess Dauis FOR THE GAMECOCK Waking up to find your home destroyed, your city underwater and your family and friends scattered across the country sounds like • something out of a nightmare. For USC students from New Orleans, it has become a tragic reality. Sarah Dendy, a second-year chemistry student, is a life-long New Orleans resident, but she doesn’t know if she still has a home after Hurricane Katrina wreaked havoc on the city. Her parents evacuated Saturday with her older brother and their two greyhounds, and have been staying in Houston with family friends, but Dendy doesn’t know if their house is flooded, if her friends are safe or if she will ever get to go back to the city she loves. Sarah Workman, a second-year entertainment and sports management student, lives in a suburb of New Orleans called Metairie; a brief five-minute drive from the city, it lies on the other side of the levee that broke and flooded uic city. Her house is still standing and her family is safe, but she said she feels like she’s lost her home. “I’m really upset because last week I had a city and now I don’t because it’s underwater,” Workman said. “I was born and raised there; it’s the only city I’ve ever known. Everything I know is there — it’s a metropolis, but it’s homey. All these great restaurants, clubs and bars, everything is gone.” Dendy watches CNN every time she’s near a television, and checks the news online any time she is around a computer. She even checks news from her cell phone while she’s in class. Workman avoids the news completely. “I refuse to watch the news because I know I’ll start crying,” she said. niGHTmORC • 3 Business school professor conducts 1-day experiment in classroom to aid hurricane victims i Stephen Fastenau { NEWS EDITOR In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, subsequent media coverage of the disaster has allowed the nation to see the tragedy at nearly a first-hand level. Stacy Wood, a professor in the Moore School of Business, recognizing the magnitude of the situation, found a unique way to raise money for victims using her consumer behavior class Wednesday. Wood had been teaching the class of nearly 40 students about the concepts of perception and signaling (consumers’ ideas of product or service quality based on certain cues). She decided to combine service with teaching by having the students test the theory in a class project. Before class, Wood sent an e-mail to her students asking them to wear walking shoes to class Wednesday, and to bring Mardi Gras beads if they had them. Turning her class into groups or nine teams ot four people apiece, Wood gave each team a piece of posterboard, a marker and a bucket. Their instructions: Raise as much money as possible through theories learned in class, with proceeds going to the American Red Cross for the hurricane relief effort. Through what they learned in class to enhance a potential donors “impulse to give,” students roamed the downtown area armed with their own unique strategy and meager supplies. The results astounded Wood, as the students raised more than $ 1,650, not including pledges. “I was really amazed. When I first put the assignment together, it was spur of the moment,” Wood said. Wood assumed each group would be lucky to pusil in $50, given thfcy only had an hoUr to ■ Refugees of Hurricane Katrina roam Interstate 10 Thursday in search of a place to go days after the Category 4 storm flooded New Orleans. Mayor Ray Nagin called for a ‘desperate SOS.’ Mitchell leads USC to close-call victory Spurrier era begins in front of capacity crowd, national audience Alex Riley ASSISTANT SPORTS EDITOR Fans chanted “Game-cocks” back and forth across the stadium. The pregame video of Gamecock greats lit | up the Jumbotron screen. The sound of “2001” began to filter over the airways. And it couldn’t get here fast enough. After almost 10 months of hype and eagerness, the Steve Spurrier era at USC kicked off with an overflow capacity crowd of 82,753 filling the seats for one the most anticipated games in Williams-Brice history. But the era didn’t begin with the bang many thought it would. Instead, it started with more of a thud, as USC handed UCF its 16th straight loss with a 24-15 win. Before the band could even get back into its seat, the cock ‘n’ fire offense began to work its magic, as Blake Mitchell hit Noah Whiteside for a 49-yard touchdown with less than three minutes taken off the clock on a drive that lasted five plays. “I was just thinking that if that safety comes up then I’ve got to get it,” Whiteside said. Freshman Mike Davis got to show off his moves early, as on the following drive Davis took a screen pass 64 yards to set up the Gamecocks in the red zone. That drive finished FOOTBALL • 10 INSIDE Viewpoints Aaron Brazier comments on lack of student preparation for classes; Shawn Callihan offers alternatives to pay ing sky-high gas prices. ^ The Mix » A pirate’s life ! New Brookland Tavern i plays host to Pirate Fest! 2 on Saturday. The ! traveling music tour fea ! tures a variety of local, regional and national acts. r; 0 WWW, dailvvamecock. com_ Chaos descends as looters ravage flooded city The Associated Press . NEW ORLEANS — Fights and fires broke out, corpses lay out in the open, and rescue helicopters and law enforcement officers were shot at as flooded-out New Orleans descended into anarchy Thursday. “This is a desperate SOS,” the mayor said. Anger mounted across the ruined city, with thousands of storm victims increasingly hungry, desperate and tired of waiting for buses to take them out. we are out here like pure animals. We dont have help,” the Rev. Issac Clark, 68, said outside the New Orleans Convention Center, where corpses lay in the open and he and other evacuees complained that they were dropped off and given nothing — no food, no water, no medicine. The plea from Mayor Ray Nagin came even as National Guardsmen poured in to help restore order and put a stop to the looting, carjackings and gunfire that have gripped New Orleans in the days since Hurricane Katrina plunged much of the city under water. About 15,000 to 20,000 people who had taken shelter at the convention center to await buses were growing angry and restless in what appeared to be a potentially explosive situation. In hopes of defusing it, the mayor gave them permission to march across a bridge to the city’s unflooded west bank for whatever relief they can find. In Washington, Homeland Security Secretary BEBLfllll • 2 Students feel pinch at pump as gasoline line interference causes U.S. prices to skyrocket Kristen Highly FOR THE GAMECOCK Hurricane Katrina has caused a major disruption in fuel production, interfering with gasoline lines and leaving many in the Columbia area stranded for the Labor Day weekend. In Katrinas aftermath, the U.S.’s oil production was down by almost 10 percent, which caused gas prices to jump anywhere from a nickel in the Northern U.S. to 80 cents a gallon in the Southeast. Experts say no long term shortages are expected, but for the present, prices are rising quickly. Smaller, privately owned stations are drying up and closing down. “It’s important for everyone to remain calm and patient, and to conserve gas while we continue to work toward determining how to best address this situation,” said Governor Mark Sanford in a news release. For many students on campus, the gas situation means rethinking Labor Day travel plans and work commutes, as well as taking advantage of campus transportation instead of their own cars. GAS #3 Campus groups, USC officials to organize relief efforts; SG participates in WIS telethon From staff reports As nightmarish reports continue to stream out of the areas hit hardest by Hurricane Katrina, student and university leaders are making tentative plans to organize relief efforts on campus. To raise money for victims, Student Government and other student groups will partner with the Carolina Chapter of the American Red Cross for a telethon Friday evening on WIS. “I think we need to do everything we can to help our fellow Americans,” said SG Treasurer Tommy PrestAn, a third-year political science * _iistHEi pq m i