Hurricane Katrina took more than 1,500 lives. Most of those people died in their homes because they could not escape, or they died trying to escape the flood waters. The hurricane submerged 80 percent of the parish, a land mass seven times the size of Manhattan. The flood lasted for fifty-seven days and destroyed over 160,000 homes and apartments. Katrina caused the largest metropolitan diaspora in the history of the United States, displacing more than 80 percent of the population. In this article, the author describes Tulane University's experience of Hurricane Katrina and how the university survived it. He discusses the three most important decisions affecting the recovery of the institution, the four cornerstones of its renewal plan, and the four major challenges the university now faces.