Last Friday, when Hurricane Helene swept through Scioto County and left damage in her wake, people from all over were sharing photos of the devastation.

Roads flooded, houses partially under water, trees over power lines, businesses taking on water.

One of the most circulated photos included one of Shawnee State University’s (SSU) eastern parking lot, soccer field, and dormitories.

The damage at Shawnee State — once water levels retreated that flooded dorms, cars, and a few spots around campus — estimated that the university as one of the toughest hit institutions in the county.

Student loss is expected to be around the $100,000 mark, but the university is still itemizing the losses and inspecting what damage can be calculated.

According to SSU’s Liz Blevins, storm water runoff flooded the area in less than 20 minutes.

Eight to 10 cars were submerged in several feet of water, and Townhouse Apartment dormitories were flooded in the lower levels, impacting 39 students.

“It all happened very fast, but the response was quick. Students were getting others and moving cars and retrieving property,” Blevins said. “All of student life was out there, the Department of Public Safety, SSU facilities, students and staff. Everyone was helping.”

While the flood directly impacted 39 students, 80 students across Townhouse were removed for cleanup and renovations.

While many students were being removed from their housing, Blevins said a lot of people stepped up to help.

“We had a lot of people reaching out. One was ServePro, which reached out immediately and were here the next morning. Southern Ohio Medical Center reached out with warm, dry blankets, sheets and towels,” Blevins said. “Dr. Elizabeth Cline, our dean of students, said that she was on the scene and there was so much help that we didn’t even know who all to thank. There was pizza there for students who were relocating. People were delivering dry clothes. She said that it was amazing.”

According to Blevins, Cline said, “I was witnessing a community. People were helping people. There were students and athletes. Everyone, immediately, was trying to save cars and property.”

Blevins said that people helped until the Department of Public Safety called them off from the task to keep them out of harm’s way.

Shawnee State is now recovering from the storm damage and planning a remodel of Townhouse, which will be a complete update that Blevins suspects will keep students from the dorms for at least two semesters.

“What we are going to do is a full remodel,” Blevins said. “We’ve have already cleaned most of the areas, but we’re going to go ahead and remodel those apartments and do more than cleaning. We’re going to really rehab them. They’ll likely be offline for the next two semesters while we do that.”

Blevins said that the university does not yet have an estimated financial impact of the storm, and tracking that will be complicated, because they’re also throwing in the remodeling and update work.

“We are well over $100,000 in damages at just the Townhouse Apartments,” Blevins said. “We also had water damage in some of our other locations, such as the Rhodes Athletic Center and library. We had crews in there, immediately, by Monday. Those have been cleaned and are fine now, but I’ve not seen an estimated cost adding all these costs together.”

Blevins explained that classes were not canceled at any point in time, because the university wanted to be able to offer resources onsite that are made possible due to being open.

Additionally, the staff ensured students there would be flexibility in their classes, resources would be provided for success, and the development foundation was working to mitigate student loss.

“People were tremendous. Particularly our resident assistants. We have a young group of RAs right now and this is the first time they served as an RA. They handled themselves in an organized fashion, they knew where all their residents were, they were in touch with people,” Blevins said. “Some people had left for the weekend, but they knew where everyone was. It was tremendous. Then you add in the other students and staff and community members helping and we had a lot of people making a difference.”