Kansas State University has started making temporary repairs to buildings damaged by the tornado last week that hit campus.

Bruce Shubert, associate vice president for administration and finance, said in a press release from K-State that the immediate goal for the repairs is to avoid further damage and keeping the buildings dry if it rains.

Summer school classes are still meeting, but 18 classes have been reassigned to different locations until the temporary repair work is completed. Officials at K-State look for classes to be in their original locations as soon as possible.

"We will reassess the situation on Monday to ascertain which classrooms now under repair have been made safe and ready for classes to return to them," M. Duane Nelis, provost and senior vice president, said in the release.

About 26 buildings sustained damages from the tornado. The ones with the most serious damage were Weber, Waters, Durland/Rathbone/Fiedler, Call, Cardwell and Ward Halls. Other buildings and laboratories sustained damages, but nothing was completely destroyed on campus.

Official said Ward Hall, home of K-State's nuclear reactor, is currently secure.

"The Nuclear Regulatory Commission dispatched one of its resident inspectors from Wolf Creek to K-State," said Mo Hosni, head of K-State's department of mechanical and nuclear engineering. The inspectors found no areas of concern.

A quarter of a mile from the tornado path, the Biosecurity Research Institute operated without interruption during the storm. Since it is a high-level biocontainment facility, is it structurally built to withstand inclement weather.

K-State officials also heard from the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity about their house that sustained damages from the tornado. The adviser for the fraternity said repairs would begin next week and the house will be back fully functional and ready in the fall.

The Kansas State University Foundation has begun a fundraising program for those aspects of disaster recovery that are not covered by state and federal government to help pay for items like equipment for research projects that was lost or damaged, education supplies and labor needed for items not associated with capitol repairs or construction of replacement facilities.
Information about the fundraiser is available at www.found.ksu.edu/tornado relief.

The UFM Community Learning Center is a drop-off site for photos and other mementos that are found from tornado victims' homes.
A box is located in the UFM foyer at 1221 Thurston St. Hundreds of photos have been dropped off along with children's drawings and other items that have been found all over town.
Several of the items have been scanned and can be seen at the UFM Web site, http://www. tryufm.org