When Nora Mahoney started her first semester at Tulane University Law School in New Orleans in mid-August, she never thought she’d be leaving after just one week of classes.  The law school first year, a native of Goffstown, said, “I loved my classes.  I chose Tulane because it is the best comparative law school in the country.”

Mahoney, whose mother Marilyn is an attorney with Harvey & Mahoney in Manchester, is working part-time for the Pro Bono department at the NHBA.  She shares her time with LARC (the Legal Advice and Referral Center) in Concord.  “Just the Friday night before Katrina hit, we were at a law school party for first years in the French Quarter.  Even when four of us crammed into my Civic to leave New Orleans during the evacuation, we had no idea we wouldn’t be coming back within the next few days.”

Mahoney drove to Atlanta first where she has relatives.  “We got out just a couple of hours before the terrible traffic jams on the highways…. I stayed with my aunt and uncle and cousins in Atlanta for a week, but finally got word that Tulane would not reopen anytime soon.”  The University did not suffer much from the flooding, but had considerable wind damage—and there will be mold and mildew to deal with.

“Most upperclassmen decided to do the fall semester at other schools, but first years were told not to,” said Mahoney.  Tulane expects the school will re-start the fall semester in January for the first year students and will take them straight through the summer (with perhaps three weeks’ recess) so that they will be ready for their second year by next fall.

Mahoney had worked at a large non-profit in Boston and remembered some clients who were refugees.  “I never thought I’d be one of those people who had to ‘flee’ from anything,” she said.  “I was lucky; I had a home to go to—and still I feel as if my life has been shunted off into an alternate universe.” She paused.  “But around me, life goes on the same for everybody else…. 

“The first night in Atlanta, I had this dream.  I was being chased through the streets of New Orleans by a tsunami.  I jumped into a car and drove out of the city.  I drove and drove.  Eventually, I saw ahead of me a huge snow-covered hillside.  I can drive through six inches of snow, I thought, as long as I don’t drown!”  She laughed.  “Talk about symbolic!”

So Mahoney is back in New England (snow banks and all) at least until January.  “It was a hundred degrees when I left New Orleans,” she said.  “The only shoes I brought were four pairs of flip-flops—and I have one pair of socks!”  She looked a little puzzled, as if she still couldn’t quite believe the events of the last few weeks.

“I’d been somewhat apprehensive about living in the South,” she said.  “So different from New England—and to me a little scary.  But I like to face my fears—and I was beginning to feel at home in New Orleans. Tulane was just great—and my professors were wonderful.  I’m really looking forward to going back.”

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