St. Joseph Seminary College rebounding from flood

When Hurricane Katrina devastated south Louisiana nearly 11 years ago, it essentially spared St. Joseph Abbey and Seminary College, leaving it virtually untouched except for piles of downed tree limbs.
 
The abbey was such a fortress it was able to house, feed and educate seminarians from Notre Dame Seminary for a semester, keeping them on track in their theology studies.
 
The abbey had so much green space that modular classroom facilities were set up behind the seminary’s main buildings, allowing the entire Archbishop Hannan High School campus to relocate from flooded Meraux in St. Bernard Parish.

March flood swept through
But in March, a seemingly nondescript series of storms, coupled with a relentless south wind that blocked floodwaters from receding into Lake Pontchartrain, sent 3 to 4 feet of water from the swollen Bogue Falaya River into every building on the St. Joseph Abbey campus.
 
The Benedictine monks who run the abbey and seminary college estimate repairing the damage and rebuilding will cost about $30 million.
 
Even though the Benedictine monks were told they did not need flood insurance, they discovered later that the abbey is located in a flood plain.
 
“We know now,” said Benedictine Father Gregory Boquet, rector of the seminary college.
 
Between $18 to $20 million already has been spent just to remediate the flooded buildings on campus, and completing the reconstruction of every building will raise the total cost to $30 million, Father Boquet said.

Surging enrollment
While the monks work with FEMA to determine the level of federal aid they will receive for damage to the seminary’s classrooms, dormitories, offices and other “non-church” facilities, the seminary itself will open the new academic year with about 163 seminarians – 25 more than it had last year.
 
New seminarians will arrive Aug. 13, followed by returning seminarians on Aug. 16. Classes will resume on Aug. 22.
 
Six modular classrooms and several modular housing units providing 48 rooms with private bathrooms have been set up on the same footprint as the Archbishop Hannan High’s modular campus 10 years ago. The first floor of Vianney Hall, which has 20 seminarian bedrooms, cannot be used.
 
“It looks like we’ll have record-breaking enrollment, and that’s why, in speaking to Archbishop (Gregory) Aymond, we really wanted to make sure we began on time while the momentum of this many students is so positive,” Father Boquet said.

FEMA process takes time
The abbey has hired the Sulzer Group, which helped Holy Cross School navigate the frequently arcane FEMA regulations to build its new campus in Gentilly. While FEMA has not reimbursed the seminary college for any expenses as of yet, Stan Vignes, CEO of the Sulzer Group, said he expects to hear something definitive within the next 90 days.
 
“There are a lot of moving parts,” Vignes said. “This will not be funded at the same level as the damage from Hurricane Katrina. This is what is called a ‘75 -percent’ disaster. Whatever FEMA gives the abbey, the monks will have to come up with a 25-percent match.”
 
Bringing in the modular units for classrooms and student housing gives the abbey additional time to fully document the damages to its permanent buildings, Father Boquet said.
 
“What we need is time,” Father Boquet said. “If we try to rush the process, we may miss an opportunity to get a reimbursement.”

Set priorities for repairs
It took about two months to finish the remediation work, and the monks decided to prioritize the buildings it needed to repair first.

“We can’t do everything at the same time, so priority was given to what was most important for the industry of the abbey,” Father Boquet said. Priority was given to the seminary, the woodworks building where cypress caskets are made, the bakery and the church.

“That’s the soul of our campus,” he said. Mass resumed in the abbey church at the end of June.

Some dioceses have pre-paid
About $4 million has been raised independently for repairs since the flood. Many dioceses who send their seminarians to St. Joseph have paid in advance for tuition, room and board to help the abbey’s cash flow, and some have offered additional donations.

The seminary lost several thousand books from its library stacks, but it has increased its supply of digital books.

The students have been understanding and generous in how they have handled the abnormal situation, Father Boquet said.

“They’ve been very, very heroic with this,” he said. “Immediately after the flood, we had guys sharing a room with one another.”

For information on how to help the abbey with a financial contribution, contactwww.helptheabbey.com.

Peter Finney Jr. can be reached atpfinney@clarionherald.org.