[CAUT] Rita Preparations

[Avery Todd]

List,

Do any of you have disaster preparation plans established in case of 
any impending disaster? Especially involving wind and/or water? After 
Katrina, and as many people as Houston has taken in from that area, 
everyone is understandably skittish. Our 4 campuses alone have taken 
in app. 1,000 students, most here at the big campus.

At our staff meeting yesterday, things we could, should, need to do 
were discussed, such as shutting down computers, unplugging them, 
getting them off the floor, etc. We have a 3-story building and 
almost all of the faculty studios are on an outside wall with 
windows. In case of window breakage, it was suggested that one way we 
might be able to protect the pianos was to cover them in a plastic of 
some kind (like a drop cloth, etc.) and fasten the bottoms around the 
legs. This would at least keep most of any blowing rain out of the 
instruments. My thought about this is that with as many pianos as we 
have, how many faculty would actually take the time to do that? :-) 
The piano faculty, probably, and there's one or two of those someone 
would probably have to help, but I wonder about most of the others. 
And I'm not going to have time to do it myself. Even though there was 
a LOT of damage at the university because of tropical storm Allison, 
outside of losing power, this building sustained almost no damage at all.

It was mentioned about backing up all the student information stored 
on computers and taking that home when leaving Friday if it looks 
like Rita is going to head directly this way. My problem with that is 
that if it heads toward Galveston and they call an emergency 
evacuation, the highways out of Houston are going to probably be 
bumper to bumper by Wednesday. Galveston officials are supposed to 
announce any evacuation plans some time today. If I have to wait 
until Friday, I imagine I'll be pretty well "stuck" here even though 
I could head north to the Ft. Worth area where a sister lives (& have 
already been "instructed" by her to do that, if necessary) :-)

Does anyone have any other ideas/suggestions about preparing for the 
potential of something like Katrina hitting here? Rita isn't expected 
to be anywhere near that strong, but in the Gulf, one never knows 
what could happen! Thanks.

Avery



_______________________
Avery Todd, RPT
Moores School of Music
University of Houston
Houston, TX 77204-4017