Like the rest of the east coast, Iona students weathered power outages, fallen trees and evacuations during and in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.

In anticipation of the storm’s devastation, Iona cancelled classes for Oct. 29. Classes were also cancelled for the following two days after surveying Sandy’s damage for students in New Rochelle and for the travel challenges the damage presented to commuter students, faculty, administration and staff.

The effects of Sandy varied on Iona’s campus with power outages and evacuations occurring for the residents of Rice Hall and the apartments at Eastchester as well as Iona’s houses on President Street, Hubert Place and Halcyon Terrace.

“We lost power at about 9:30 p.m., so we began lighting LED candles and preparing for the rest of the night with the storm,” said senior Allyson Moffat who lives in Iona’s house on Hubert Place.

Moffat explained that about an hour after she had lost power, she received a call from the Office of Residential Life informing her and her roommates that they were being evacuated to Hynes Athletic Center West.

Vice Provost for Student Development Charles Carlson announced that students would be able to stay with their friends in off-campus houses, in the residence halls of Conese, South or Loftus and other locations around campus that retained power.

Junior Chelsea Carson, a resident assistant in Eastchester building eight explained that, like Moffat, she received a phone call from the Office of Residential Life at about 9:30 telling her that she and her residents needed to have a bag packed in 15 minutes to evacuate to the gym.

“My residents were very unhappy,” Carson said, “but I think that under the circumstances all of the residence hall directors and residential life did a good job in evacuating us all within a half hour.”

Despite her residents’ concern in being evacuated, Carson said that they were all relieved when the college made the decision to transport students to other residence halls or off-campus locations. Carson herself was happy she was able to sleep in a friend’s room in Conese Hall.

Like Carson, Moffat was relieved not to have to sleep on the gym floor, choosing to stay at the house of the family she babysits for close to campus.

East Hall, Iona’s newest residence hall right in the heart of campus, was not without its share of difficulties in the storm.

“East wasn’t as clear cut as Eastchester,” said senior Michelle Rosenbrock, a resident assistant in East Hall, explaining that like in Eastchester and Rice, the resident assistants in East were told that they were to evacuate the building after losing power, but were then told by Carlson that residents of East Hall were to remain in the building.

“We didn’t have residents clearly knowing they weren’t evacuating until 11 p.m., so between 9:30 and 11 p.m. residents and resident assistants didn’t know what was going on.”

Still, Rosenbrock feels lucky that she and the rest of East Hall were not forced to evacuate.

“Facilities hooked up a back up generator which lit the hallway, emergency exits and the bathroom,” she said. “You have to be on campus for electricity because there’s no power in the rooms, but it was nice that we were able to stay in East for the night and be in our own beds.”

On-campus residents were not the only students feeling inconvenienced by Sandy’s destructive arrival. Iona’s numerous off-campus students suffered power outages due to the strong wind gusts and awoke Tuesday morning to downed power lines on the sidewalks and fallen trees spanning across highly student populated streets like Treno St., Brookside Place, Fifth Ave. and Coligini Ave.

“We lost power at about 7 p.m. and that was about the time when the wind picked up,” said senior Shannon Mason, an off-campus student living on Fifth Ave. “My housemates and I stayed in our living room with water, flashlights, candles and card games – our house was shaking due to the wind and we couldn’t sleep, so we hung out and played games.”

In the morning, Mason and her housemates assessed the damage to their house, which was minimal, and headed to LaPenta Student Union, which remained open for students, and to McSpedon Hall to charge their phones and laptops before heading back home without power.

“I’m thankful though,” Mason said, “because compared to Long Island and New Jersey, we didn’t get hit nearly as bad.”

Kerri-Leigh Heeseman, a sophomore resident of Conese Hall, one of the three Iona residence halls that retained power, had a very different Sandy experience than Moffat, Carson and Mason.

“I just kind of stayed in the dorms and we decided to make a giant blanket fort,” Heeseman said.

Heeseman explained that she and her roommates were not at all worried about the storm and enjoyed the “suite bonding” that occurred in the “Mega Fort.”

For Heeseman, Sandy was far from a worry, as she knows exactly where she will be staying for the remainder of the week.

The same cannot be said for Carson or Moffat, both of whom hope to be staying in one of the courtyard residence halls with their friends.

“I think the school did what they could in this situation,” said Moffat. “I just want to be in my house, have my stuff and get back to my normal routine, but I can’t go into my house until further notice. It’s obviously an inconvenience, but there are a lot of people who are have lost their homes, so there are more issues out there than just losing power.”