The wind didn't seem that bad during the morning. Yes, it was a storm, and a fierce one too, but it didn't seem like the hurricane predicted by the weather forecast. We had our lecture in a warm and cosy classroom, and hardly noticed how it grew stronger and stronger.

After the break we walked to the old building in the city centre, where we were going to have our Welsh classes. We waited in the corridor for our teacher, but she didn't show up. Now there's an unwritten rule that if a teacher is more than half an hour late, the lecture is off. But it wasn't this teacher's way to stay away without a message. Besides, she was only a year older than us, and used to have lectures with us once. We all knew her well, and except from the fact that she was on the other side of the desk now, she was still one of us. Some of us had her phone number, but she hadn't called anyone.

After half an hour she arrived, soaked and tired. She came from the campus at the rim of the city.
" It's a complete chaos", she explained.
A crane had collapsed on top of one of the buildings. Two lecture halls were completely destroyed, as was a toilet block. Some buses didn't go anymore and there was panic everywhere.

We immediately called our families to tell them that we were NOT in that building, but Katja's boyfriend had his own news. While he was glad she was allright, he had had an accident himself. The wind had blown his bike right into a moped. He was unhurt, but the woman on the moped had to be taken to the hospital.

After the lecture, Katja and I went to the canteen. She would have singing lessons that evening, and I would have dinner with my friend Pam, who lived at the campus where the crane had been blown over. We were talking and doing homework, and every now and then Katja called her boyfriend to hear more about the woman he had bumped into. There was not much he could tell her, except that she had a concussion.
Then she was called by one of the girls from the singing class. The lesson was off because of the weather. The meteorological institute had issued a warning to stay inside and the railroads were to stop all traffic within a few hours. Next Katja turned into a call centre. She had to call off the other girls.

After all the calls were made, Katja was thinking of going home to comfort her boyfriend, but then another phonecall came in. It was our classmate Erin. She had gone to the station immediately after the last lecture, and it was now two hours later, but appearantly she was still there. All traffic had stopped, and there were neither buses nor trains going. She wanted to know where we were, so she wouldn't be all alone in the big city.

After another half an hour, Erin arrived, and the three of us were alone in the canteen. We were stranded in this city were neither of us lived, and while Katja worried about her boyfriend, we all worried about where we would have to spend the night. Of course I knew Pam, and we also had a classmate Mary, who had a room in the city, but the problem was that they both lived at the campus. And Erin had just told us that not only the trains were down, but the buses as well...

Were could we go? Hotels were too expensive and hostels would now probably be full. The benches in the canteen suddenly didn't look all that uncomfortable, but we knew it would close in the evening...

Katja suggested to go to professor Van Dale, for if he was still at his work, he would have acces to the internet, and thus we would be able at least to get some information on the situation.

Professor Van Dale probably has the stiffest upper lip one can imagine. He's the kind of person that stays laconic under every circumstance. He didn't seem too bothered about the weather alert, and remained cool even when his wife called him to tell that the door was blown out of their house. Yet he didn't realy have a solution for our problem. He did warn us that our idea of trying to reach the campus on foot wasn't very smart though, as people had already been injured by falling debris and trees. I tried to phone Pam on his phone, as I had forgotten my cellphone, but she didn't answer it...

We gathered the courage to brave the hurricane, to go to the station, for if an emergency shelter would be set up, it would be there. I had once slept there during the university's introduction, and the thought of having to sleep at the station wasn't very attractive. Yet there was no alternative.

When we got there, we saw a bus ready to depart. I jumped in and dragged Katja and Erin with me. Off we went. But just had we left the station when Katja complained that she had nothing with her. No underwear, no toothbrush... If she was going to spend the night at Mary's or Pam's, she wanted to be clean. Almost she had jumped out of the bus again, but we stopped her, for it was very likely that we wouldn't get another chance to get to the campus.

Katja's cellphone rang again. It was Pam. She had called my parents, and they had given her Katja's number. Katja handed her phone to me.
" Where are you now?"
" On my way to you. But uhm... I have two friends with me who are stranded too. We are all very hungry and tired and I wondered if they could join us."
" Sure... There's enough food."

One problem solved. Yet, I wasn't too sure wether Pam had enough place for a slumber party. Besides, she hardly knew Katja and Erin.

We arrived at the campus, and hurried to the student houses. At last we were at a safe place, and wherever we had to sleep, it wouldn't be at the station. We had dinner, and Katja phoned Mary. She was home and they were of course welcome.

The next morning I awoke on a mattress in Pam's room. She turned on the telly to watch the news, and I saw how the people who had spent their night at the station had had a rough night. The army and the red cross had indeed set up an emegency shelter, but there were far too few beds for the thousands of people who were stranded. I was glad we had taken that last bus to the campus, for I had slept well.