This article features the text of a speech by Richard Whiteside, Vice President for Enrollment Management and Dean of Admission at Tulane University in New Orleans, that was presented during AACRAO's Strategic Enrollment Management (SEM) Conference, November 15, 2005, in Chicago. In his speech, Whiteside recounts his personal story of living through Hurricane Katrina, and describes five lessons learned in coping with a catastrophe of that magnitude.