The University is still on weather watch and determining whether afternoon classes will resume as normal today, Eric Gerber, director of communications, said.
With Tropical Storm Humberto approaching the coast Wednesday night, UH decided to take the necessary precautions and cancel classes from 5 p.m. Wednesday till noon today, he said.
"We’re asking students to check the news in the morning to see if we’ll be open," Gerber said.
Students will also be notified via e-mail, phone and text messages.
University officials met at approximately 3 p.m. to make decisions about closing down the campus, Vice President of Plant Operations David Irvin said.
While students might have not received an advisory earlier in the day, campus maintenance was suspended for emergency planning in preparation for the storm after UH Interim President John Rudley and Provost Donald Foss made the decision to close the University.
"As soon as we knew this morning, the emergency plan was put into swing," Irvin said.
The UH Police Department sent out campus closure alerts to students after 3 p.m. as part of the UH Public Information Emergency Response System.
PIER is linked to PeopleSoft to receive emergency contact information to alert students of emergencies.
"PIER can send out (alerts) to as many locations that are listed by students through PeopleSoft," Irvin said.
UH Police Chief Malcolm Davis and Irvin said the University subscribes to private weather services to receive the expected rain forecast.
"It can take an hour (or) hour and a half to get 30,000 alerts at once," Davis said. "No system can send out that many at once."
Davis said that officials will meet at 7 a.m. to determine if UH will remain open after noon.
"It says I have a new e-mail, but I haven’t checked it," biology senior Moon Mehmood said Wednesday about the campus closure notification after checking her e-mail on her cell phone.
Other students also said they had not been made aware of the decision through either e-mail or text messages.
"I heard that there’s supposed to be a program because of Hurricane Rita that was coming through, and I don’t have it (set up) so that I would get a text message, but I do get e-mails," pre-pharmacy junior Candice Harris said. "I just realized something was wrong when they started closing down all the food (places).’"
Advertising junior Kelly Schroeder said she heard about the closure through other students.
"Because I heard (other students) talking, and then I looked online," she said.
Other students also received the information about the closures through other sources before checking the UH Web site.
"My friend told me, and I checked the Web site," information systems technology junior Mark Vuong said.
UH-Downtown e-mailed students to alert them that a decision on campus closures will be sent out at 5 a.m.
UH satellite campuses at Victoria, Sugar Land and Cinco Ranch will be open today because the rainfall is expected to be along the east coast, according to each respectiveWeb site.
Tropical Storm Humberto
Humberto was expected to make landfall late Wednesday night, Brad Bryant, National Weather Service forecaster, said.
"It could strengthen slightly, or could be a strong tropical storm once it makes landfall later tonight," he said. "Either way the primary risk for Houston is heavy rainfall."
Houston shouldn’t be expecting as much rainfall as areas east of the city because the storm is heading toward Louisiana, he said.
"It’s going to keep moving north and northeast. Heavy storms and the majority of the rain will be up in the east. Higher totals will be toward Port Arthur," he said. "Rainfall totals will range from five to 10 inches in those areas. Houston probably won’t be getting that high."
Houstonians should only worry about rainfall, and heavy flooding is not expected, Bryant said.
As of Wednesday night, Bryant said NWS forecasters and meteorologists still weren’t exactly sure of the tropical storm’s path.
"Motion of the storm is a bit erratic at present," he said early Wednesday evening. "It’ll depend on the movement tonight."
The strength of the winds will depend on how heavy the rainfall will be, Bryant said.
"You could see winds gusts at 40 to 45 miles an hour if the storm takes a due north track," he said. "And if there’s not that much rain, there’s not going to be that much gust of winds."
A 30 percent chance of rain is expected for Thursday night and a 30 to 60 percent chance of will come Friday, according to the NWS weekly forecast.
Heavy rains are expected to clear up by Saturday when it should be about 89 degrees.
