Shortly after 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, May 6, Christina Rangel watched a fire burning in the historic Main Building of Our Lady of the Lake University, and worried about the safety of her friends and professors inside and wondered what would happen to her dorm room on the third floor of the building.

One hectic week later, the OLLU senior said she’s just happy no one was hurt.

“It’s sad but it could have been worse,” Rangel, 23, said. “I think it’s more a miracle than a tragedy.”

The four-alarm fire began in the attic of the 113-year-old building, which housed administrative and faculty offices, the student newspaper offices, academic departments, a dorm, the main cafeteria and classrooms.

More than 120 firefighters — about half the city’s fire department — battled the blaze for more than two hours. Fire officials said the fire was probably caused by an electric short, despite earlier rumors of arson.

The result is millions of dollars in fire, smoke and water damage. One of the landmark building’s majestic spires crumbled from the fire and water.

The day after the fire, university president Tessa Martinez Pollack said in a prayer service that “we will restore Our Lady of the Lake University to its original grandeur.”

The 32 students who lived in Theresian Hall, a dorm in the Main Building, were evacuated, along with 83 students in Providence Hall near the building. The Providence residents returned to their dorms on May 8.

Theresian residents, including Rangel, were allowed to return on May 9 to retrieve their belongings, but the dorm will be closed for an indefinite amount of time, said OLLU spokesman Dan Yoxall.

Rangel was worried about the contents of her room, since the hallways of the dorm were slick with ash and standing water. But besides the smell of smoke, her possessions were as she left them.

Students missed only one day of school, and most final exams took place on schedule. Graduation is scheduled to go on as planned Saturday, May 17. The staff of the Lake Front, the student newspaper, put out their final issue of the year in temporary headquarters.

“That just speaks to the resilience and the strength and the character that our students have,” said Jerrie Jackson, professor of special education at OLLU.

“Our focus is on our students and working with them to make sure that they get what they need. I’ve heard that it was helpful to have class on (the day after the fire) because we were back in community with students.”

Senior Victoria Chavez worried the fire would overshadow graduation, especially since she was looking forward to showing off the campus to her family coming in from El Paso.

“It’s hard to look at the building and imagine what it looked like before,” said Chavez, 23, who lives in Providence. “But I think there is reason to celebrate still. There’s a lot of optimism because we still have every single student that was there that day.”

The university has received an outpouring of support from the city, Yoxall said. Restaurants and H-E-B stores have been providing food for the students; Best Buy donated computers and other electronics.

The university — which had been facing declining enrollment in recent years — actually saw a sharp increase in applications immediately after the fire. In the 24 hours after the fire, the school received a record 19 applications online, Yoxall said. By Thursday night, it had received 43.

Yoxall attributes part of that to the university’s stepped-up recruitment in the past year. But he said the fire likely was a factor as well because prospective students saw the students, faculty and staff on the TV news “talking from their hearts” and witnessed the “strong community” of the university.

“To watch the campus come together was just amazing,” he said. “We have this devastating damage to our Main Building, but it’s a building. We can fix it. We’re going to be a stronger institution because of it.”

Jessica Belasco | 210SA contributor