Inching along an evacuation route and realizing the situation was more dire than she originally expected, Tulane junior Leslie Christian was moved to tears at the sight of signs saying "God Bless New Orleans."

Less than 24 hours later, the city was ravaged by Hurricane Katrina, which devastated the Gulf Coast and is the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history.

Just over six weeks since that day, Christian has settled in an old computer room in a housing complex at Texas A&M University.

"We're staying in a freshman dorm on the A&M campus, in an old computer room that they emptied out and put some beds in," she said. "Everyone here has been so nice. No complaints, it's just been a little different."

Christian, a 2003 Leilehua graduate and a member of Tulane's women's swimming and diving team, has been in College Station, Texas, 440 miles from New Orleans, since last month.

Other Tulane teams there, totalling 90 athletes, are men's basketball, women's soccer, men's and women's tennis and women's volleyball.

Other Tulane programs were sent to Southern Methodist, Texas Tech and Louisiana Tech.

"They absorbed us and found a way to get us into their facilities," Christian said. "It's pretty cool."

It helped to have a support system that included her swim team to get through the ordeal.

"I don't know what I would have done if I was split up from my team," Christian said. "I don't know how I would have handled it.

"It's been really hard on a lot of people, especially the people who are from New Orleans. They not only lost where they were going to school, but their families lost their homes. I've seen girls go through their moods, but everyone pulled it together. They've been surprisingly strong about it."

She had waited almost too long to evacuate New Orleans. Along with a group of friends, she began her trek the morning before the hurricane hit, only to realize many other people had waited as long to evacuate the city.

"It took 12 hours to get to Shreveport (La.), which is normally a five-hour drive," she said.

But it was during their long drive that they realized the magnitude of what was happening.

"It didn't really hit home until we were on the evacuation route and there was an overpass and there were several trucks that had stopped," she said. "And people were holding up American flags and signs saying 'God Bless New Orleans.'

"We all started crying. It was heartbreaking. There were small cars crammed with people, old clunker cars filled with people."

After spending some time in Shreveport, she made her way down to Lafayette, La., to pick up more friends, then drove 18 hours to North Carolina.

There, she received an e-mail from her coach, Daniella Irle, saying the team was meeting in College Station, which would be its home for the next few months. So she turned around and drove 23 more hours to get to Texas.

The whole time, she had minimal communication with her parents, who moved to Washington, D.C., from Wahiawa this past summer.

"It was hard. My cell phone wasn't working, but (text messaging) was helping and I would use my friends' cell phones," she said.

She abandoned her on-campus apartment, only taking two small bags and her laptop, thinking she would return shortly.

"We didn't take it seriously at all," she said. "There were so many warnings before, with Hurricane Ivan my sophomore year (2004). We thought we were going to be coming back in a couple of days."

She has done some shopping with vouchers she received from the Red Cross to supplement her wardrobe until she can return to her apartment, which she heard is doing "fine apparently, but the campus hasn't been opened for us to go and get our stuff."

Tulane should re-open for the spring semester on Jan. 17, 2006.

"Everyone's keeping their eye on the prize," Christian said. "I've never been so excited about something."

In the meantime, Tulane shares the athletic facilities with the Texas A&M athletes, and Irle has been "working like crazy" to get a schedule together.

"We basically lost our budget, so travelling is difficult," said Christian, a distance swimmer. "And we can't host any meets. But we'll definitely be competing this season."

She's taking a lighter class load, including sociology, anthropology and environmental science classes.

Walking around campus, she said it feels like Texas A&M students "can tell (she's a Tulane student), I don't know how.

"Maybe they are just that friendly here. People say 'howdy' everywhere you go. That took some getting used to."

Reach Leila Wai at lwai@honoluluadvertiser.com.