Power outages from Tuesday's storm are affecting everything from students ability to take showers to their chance to earn a living.
"People have been coming up here to shower instead of working out," said SriRam Nandiraju, employee of the Campus Recreation Center on Echles.
The recreation center is open and running today. He said he called in to make sure.
When the storm hit Tuesday morning, Nandiraju was walking outside to have a cup of coffee. He said when he saw the storm coming he went back inside. After the storm hit, he called the recreation center and the recording said it was closed. Nandiraju said he didn't mind having the day off on Tuesday.
"I called in this morning and the recording said we were open," he said.
Fortunately some students have electricity at home, but at work it's another story. Sophomore Jessica Allen said the storm woke her up Tuesday morning. She could hear the wind and rain beating against her windows and when she looked outside it frightened her.
Allen lives on the third floor of an apartment building and she said there is a huge tree in front of her building.
"I kept looking out the window and watching that tree," Allen said. "I was scared it was going to fall on us."
Luckily the tree held its ground and she still has power.
Allen said she called in to work at SteinMart Wednesday morning to see if they were open and since there was no answer, she went on to work. She said the traffic wasn't bad going in, but she saw a lot of power lines down and police were directing traffic.
When Allen got to work, the store was dark and her manager told her to go home because they didn't know when power would be restored. It was on her way back that she realized she wasn't going to be able to get home for quite a while.
Although there were warnings about Germantown Parkway in the Walnut Grove area, Allen did not hear them and had to wait it out.
"I was stuck in my car with no air conditioning for two hours," Allen said. "I couldn't believe how backed up it was."
Allen has worked at SteinMart for nine months and said work has been slow lately due to lack of sales. Her hours have already been cut back and after this storm she's worried about her financial situation. She said she's going to be strapped now because all of her bills are due about this time of the month.
"I'm worried about my paycheck," Allen said. "I need the money."
So even though it may be nice to have a day or two off, it becomes unpleasant when a paycheck gets skimpy.
Freshman Manijeh Feizkhah said she never knew the storm happened until some time after she awoke Tuesday morning.
"The storm didn't wake me up," she said.
Feizkhah said she woke up about 10 a.m. and had power, so she didn't realize how bad the storm was until before she left for work Tuesday. She said she heard from people that there was a bad storm with trees down and power outages.
When she was in her car on her way to work at Petco, seeing the debris and power lines strewn across downtown Memphis and listening to the radio, she realized the extent of the storm's damage. She said she thought a tornado had come through.
"It took me two and half hours to get from downtown to Poplar Plaza," she said.
When she got there, the store was closed and only her manager was there.
"My manager was in the store packing up the animals to be transferred to a store with power," Feizkhah said. "She told me she had no idea when the power would be back on."
Feizkhah said she was given Wednesday off. She asked about making up the lost hours but hasn't been given an answer as to whether she will be able to. She said even though the storm didn't hit her hard physically, it did financially.
"Because of low sales this week, they'll probably have to cut payroll, so I probably won't get to make up those hours," Feizkhah said.
