It took Ellen Thornton a year to acclimate to her life in New Orleans as a student at Tulane University, make friends, and learn her way around. But that has all changed following the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

“Pretty much we’re all displaced,” she said. “We’re all just trying to do whatever we can.”

Thornton, a 2004 graduate of Scarborough High School, would have been a sophomore this fall and planned on majoring in finance. But now, like so many others affected by the disaster, she is looking to putting her life back together and move on.

“It’s devastating to think some place you called home has been destroyed,” she said.

Since returning home Thornton described her life as a rollercoaster. She was excited about an offer from Bates College to have displaced students attend its classes, but seeing the devastation in New Orleans is depressing.

Thornton believes she will attend Bates part time. Bates has offered Maine college students affected by the flooding the opportunity to take classes there for free.

“Pretty much me and all of my friends have decided to go to other schools this semester,” she said.

The rest of the time she plans on working. While she has not received word about the state of her apartment, she is pretty sure of its fate and that of all of her possessions.

“I’m assuming since the entire city was flooded our apartment wasn’t the one saved,” she said. “It could be worse, there are a lot of people in worse situations than me.”

Thornton left most of her possessions behind when she returned home this summer, taking with her only the necessities. She returned to New Orleans a week before the hurricane, dropping off things at her apartment and showing a friend around the city.

When it was clear the hurricane was going to strike New Orleans, her friend caught the last flight out of the city on Saturday while her roommate drove back home to Texas.

Thornton, thinking the storm would not be so bad, considered staying behind, but another friend made her leave and the pair drove for two days to Jacksonville where she caught a flight back home.

“If my friend didn’t make me drive down to Jacksonville I would have been at the Superdome,” she said. “I’m grateful he made me go.”

Seeing the images of areas where she once walked and lived under water and destroyed is bit surreal and Thornton said it was hard to believe the damage suffered by the city.

“It’s indescribable,” she said. “No matter what, it’s not going to be the same. There no way it will have the same memories I had last year.”

The university has canceled the fall semester and Thornton said she is not sure about the possibility of spring classes because many students live in off-campus housing that has been destroyed.

Nor has she heard about any type of refund for the semester, but she said the school probably needs that money to rebuild its facilities.

“There’s really so many questions unanswered,” she said.

Thornton said it is hard to say if she will return to Tulane, but at this point is waiting to see what the future brings, just like every other student in her position.

“I want to at least give them some faith and see what they have to offer,” she said.

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