The disaster is the hurricane, and the hurricane is so devastating [in an unusual way] that it's driving the survivors to safety of some sort.

Also, my character is probably going to resent Jack. Js. Not that he'd know it, unless he were to pull Ro into a different room and start hounding on him like he does with a few others. 

Also, is there going to be a disaster that involves the deaths of many of the several thousand students? Because in a week, most of them would be dead, anyways, unless the controlled characters were able to mass-ship supplies in from supermarkets and the like. Several thousand students wouldn't survive in the long term- any operations to get any kind of lasting supply of food or water would be so large that the bad guys- whom I assume will be attacking sooner or later- would probably... attack.