Though in Fort Worth, some TCU students felt the effects of Hurricane Katrina as it passed through New Orleans and forced family members to evacuate.Ryan Mitsuhashi, a senior engineering major, spent his weekend arranging hotel reservations because his parents, who live in Connecticut just dropped off his sister at Tulane University for her first year, and she fled to Houston to get away from the hurricane.

Mitsuhashi’s sister, Shannon, a freshman biology major at Tulane, said people gathered in the hallway of her residence hall at 6 p.m. Saturday. They were given instructions to evacuate the campus with their parents, or the university would provide them with transportation.

Shannon said the mother of one of the other girls in her dorm offered rides and opened her house in Houston to any students who needed it. Shannon and two other students took the offer.

“I am very thankful the hurricane changed paths,” Shannon said. “A lot of people thought we weren’t going to come back to a school.”

According to Tulane’s emergency Web site, emergency.tulane.edu, the earliest class will resume is Sept. 7.

Sarah Hancock-Mullins, a senior international economics major, also has a sister at Tulane, Emily, a sophomore French major. Sarah said her sister is now in Houston with her family.

“After talking to Emily, I thought she would be excited about no school,” Sarah said, but Emily was more worried about friends.

Emily said she heard the mayor had already evacuated his family, “so we figured we should start getting out too.”

Emily said her family left at 3 a.m. Sunday and barely missed the traffic.

Katrina continued to move Northeast Monday, leaving an approxiamately 40,000 homes flooded along the gulf coast of eastern New Orleans.

Katrina was downgraded to a tropical storm Monday.