Hurricane Harvey has reached Category 2 status and continues to strengthen. The storm has slowed and is now expected to make landfall early Saturday morning. Heavy rain and wind are expected in the Houston area this weekend. Although the city of Houston is not currently recommending evacuations, there are mandatory and voluntary evacuations happening in coastal counties, which could affect traffic in Houston.

Classes at 3 p.m. or later today are canceled. The campus will close at 3 p.m. and will remain closed through 11:59 p.m. Saturday. Nonessential staff may leave at 1 p.m. today. Employees who did not to come to work today will need to use benefit time. Essential staff and ride-out teams may be asked to remain on campus to provide services to students.

Guidance for students:
Off-campus undergraduate students are welcome to move onto campus today and stay with a friend if they want to. You can eat in the serveries for free.

For graduate students, at this point we encourage you to remain in your off-campus residences. We will be monitoring weather and road conditions throughout the Houston area and will reassess this guidance as conditions change.

Guidance for faculty and staff:
If you work on the first floor or in the basement, do not leave laptops and other valuable equipment on the floor in case there is flooding in your building.

Parking:
We are checking on parking options for students and employees on campus over the weekend and will report more on this later.

The Crisis Management Team is meeting regularly to monitor weather updates and make decisions about the university's operating status for the remainder of the weekend and early next week. Updates will be communicated by email and posted on emergency.rice.edu. If an urgent communication is warranted, we will text it via Rice's emergency notification system, so please be sure your cellphone is listed correctly in your esther account.

If you have comments or questions, send an email to cmtcomment@rice.edu.

Jerusha Kasch
Director of institutional crisis management