As the nation watched Hurricane Ike make landfall outside Houston, some UT students reunited with friends and family inside student housing to watch their hometowns brave the storm.</p>
<p>Government sophomore Veronica Pecero’s family stayed in her dorm room rather than residing in a shelter.</p>
<p>Houston resident Mireya Servin, Pecero’s mother, stayed with Pecero in The Castilian, an off-campus private dorm, along with Pecero’s aunt, Nelda Prales, and grandmother, Eva Prales.</p>
<p>Arriving at her daughter’s room Thursday, Servin was surprised how little travel time it took to arrive in Austin.</p>
<p>Servin’s family was one of the millions that evacuated for Hurricane Rita in 2005, but their experience with Ike was different from what they faced with Rita, she said. Despite the news showing miles of stop-and-go traffic on Houston’s highways days before Ike hit, Servin’s drive took no more than 30 extra minutes.</p>
<p>“We were like, ‘Dear God, please help us,’” Servin said. “If we made it last time, we can make it this time.”</p>
<p>When evacuating during Rita, Pecero and her relatives drove more than 17 hours from eastern Houston to Katy, Texas, a trip that would usually take about 10 to 15 minutes. Servin passed Katy in 17 minutes on Thursday night and arrived in Austin in less than three hours.</p>
<p>“Everything was fine leaving our house,” Servin said.</p>
<p>Pecero’s family evacuated not out of fear for the storm, but because Pecero urged them to get out of Ike’s path.</p>
<p>“I was kind of worried because I knew they were going to be stubborn,” Pecero said. </p>
<p>Despite her wishes, Pecero did not expect her family to leave Houston because of their experience with Rita. Servin made an impromptu decision to evacuate Thursday and was on the road by 11:20 p.m.</p>
<p>By Friday night the family was in Austin huddled around the television watching news reports about the hurricane, worried about friends and possessions still in Houston.</p>
<p>For Lindsey Dickens, a criminal justice and psychology major at Prairie View A&M University, the decision to evacuate was not hers to make.</p>
<p>“The school asked me to leave,” Dickens said. “I couldn’t get to Houston because there were too many cars headed that way, so I went here instead.”</p>
<p>Dickens resides 45 minutes away from Houston and stayed with her friend Samantha Smith, a UT biology freshman, in Jester East dormitory. Dickens said she planned to return Sunday.</p>
<p>“Most of Houston has lost power, and they don’t know when it’ll be back,” she said. “They say it could be up to two weeks.”