Hurricane Ike

[sakuradanc]

So.. here I am sitting thirty minutes North of Houston. I don't have school and I most certainly do not have band practice.

 

Unfortunately, our band program is already close enough to having to march only our opener and ballad for our first contest, BOA Houston Regionals. This contest is only twelve practices away for us.

 

So, pretty much.. We're screwed.

 

So, my question is.. Hows the hurricane effecting your band.

[Danpod]

A lot of San Antonio area school districts, at least those who are just outside the city limits, closed their schools as early as yesterday. If they didn't close their schools yesterday, they will be having early release today. I find that kind of odd because this part of Texas isn't expecting any kind of torrential rain until tomorrow morning. However, I'm sure that those school buses are going to be needed to help evacuate people from the Gulf Coast.

 

Unfortunately, the hurricane season is just something that bands in the State of Texas have to deal with. How do you deal with losing one or two days of rehearsal? Hustle like you've never hustled before. Work as hard as you can, for as long as you can. That's really all you have control over.

 

I hope our friends in the path of Hurricane Ike are safe and all ends well.

[JediSaxSolis]

Yeah, everyone be careful.

 

Our community started shutting down on Wednesday; our last practice was on Tuesday.

 

We're only about 15 miles inland from Surfside.

 

Stay safe!

[treyj]

Luckily it isn't going to effect us at all until tomorrow night sometime.

 

I'm in arlington so we're just going to get lots of rain and hpefully it will be gone by mondays practice.

 

good luck to all

 

stay sage

[mbui]

I live in Angleton in Brazoria County. 40 miles south of Houston and 20 miles from the Gulf of Mexico. I evacuated to San Antonio. I hate hurricane season.

[AverageMarcher]

I live in Spring and i wont be evacuating.

Hopefully, by the time Ike gets to Spring, it'll only be a cat 2.

[bonepit06-07]

i live it austin and IDK wats gonna happen it keeps changing

[takigan]

I'm in Huntsville myself and I'm actually a little bit worried.....the hurricane's gonna be trucking right up i-45 and **** every single town in its path, it'll probably weaken quite a bit....I'm actually kind of excited. I've never been in hurricane winds and am actually hoping for a good show, though it could be pretty bad.

 

EDIT: lol, ra.pe get censored out. Yay for soccer mom language filters

Edited September 13, 2008 by takigan

[Trumpet Master]

Yeah i left College Station and headed home for good ol' Area G!!!

 

The weather is pretty awesome down here in South Texas right now. No rain just a slight breeze. I really do hope Texas A&M cancels class on monday.

 

[JediSaxSolis]

  Trumpet Master said:

Yeah i left College Station and headed home for good ol' Area G!!!

 

The weather is pretty awesome down here in South Texas right now. No rain just a slight breeze. I really do hope Texas A&M cancels class on monday.

 

Don't get your hopes up.

 

I'm in College Station right now, and it's not bad at all. There's some rain and the wind is strong, but it's kind of pathetic for a hurricane.

 

I think you guys only lucked out on Friday.

[Xenon]

Ike stayed Cat2 all the way through Houston and there are several reports of it blowing out a lot of windows in downtown skyscrapers. And Galveston is just a mess. Any reports on how Angleton did, Mike?

 

Ike's (Cat1) Southern eye wall just passed over Huntsville, so they are getting hit hard right now, but it should calm down in a little bit. Give us an update when you can Takigan.

[Danpod]

We didn't get a single drop of rain here in San Antonio. It's partly cloudy here and we have a great little breeze going. I hope everyone in the path of Ike is doing well. Please do keep us updated.

[JediSaxSolis]

I don't know too much about Angleton... but where I live, Lake Jackson, is only about 15 miles from Angleton.

 

From what I've heard, Lake Jackson didn't flood... but there are a lot of downed trees and powerlines. It sounds like getting power up and running again is what will be the main problem.

[mbui]

Angleton and the Brazosport area (Lake Jackson, Freeport & Clute) suffered minor damages. Flooding was more common down in Freeport and Surfside since it's right on the Gulf, but inland areas like Lake Jackson, Clute & Angleton came out alright. Just the usual down trees, electric poles, signs, and minor structural damage. I don't know what the power situation is like down in Lake Jackson, but the Angleton website says that 30% of the city has power.

[takigan]

It's pretty bad from Houston all the way up 45 to here in Huntsville (and possibly north of us as well though I'm not sure). Obviously Galveston got whaled and the coastal areas are flooded pretty bad, but even all the way up here 120 miles from the coast we still have problems of our own to deal with. As Mr. Sanchez said, the hurricane wall passed right over us. We got 60+ winds overnight and pretty much all of Huntsville still has no power outside of the University and the Prison system which are both on a different grid (so the prisoners still have power while the rest of the city doesn't.....where's the justice in that? <_>

 

I am currently at the School of Music up at the University myself updating here since internet and power is down at my place (not sure about landline phones, we don't have one, though I imagine the same...most of the cell networks are still up though albeit on low power--not really sure how all that worked out....either way, 90% of the time I have no signal anyway so it doesn't make much difference lol ). A lot of the music students have dragged various means of entertainment up to the Music Building since their places don't have power. I am literally, as I type this, witnessing our principal Oboist in the University Wind Symphony drag a 27 inch box TV through the front entrance.....he's on his way into a practice room with the TV in his arms, lol. I heard last night some of the drumline guys dragged a barbecue pit up here and had a barbecue in the music building parking lot while indoors they had a couple of Nintendo Wiis hooked up in the band hall area of the Music Building. A Trombone player I know actually went ahead and stayed the night up here since he doesn't have air conditioning at his place . I imagine a lot of the students staying off campus, bunked up with some of the people in the dorms since the dorms still have power.

 

As for my power situation, my roommate has a generator we've been using back at the apartment but only run it when necessary to preserve gas. Gas stations are inciting 10 gallon limits per car but can't legally spike the prices due to the conditions. The city currently has an 8pm curfew to discourage looters (which have been a minor problem), our next door neighbors in our apartment complex had a looter who attempted to break into their place while they were away.

 

Virtually every store (grocery, restaurant and otherwise) is closed though a couple places around town are open....the knowledge of what places are open (and closed) has been passed very efficiently via a very nice network of 'word-of-texting' by the remaining university students that happen to be carousing around town, and I know Houston radio stations are taking calls from people in the general Houston area getting word from them as to what places are open and what aren't on the matter of essentials (gas, food, ice etc.). Almost all buildings are still intact....broken windows abound in addition to a couple houses that were struck by fallen trees, and a few of the older rundown buildings downtown lost their rickety tin roofs (expected), but it's almost impossible to turn a corner and not see a fallen tree or roadsign (even seen a couple fallen telephone poles as well)...1 person was killed by a falling tree crashing into her home while she slept: http://www.itemonline.com/local/local_story_257165438.html .

 

Many of the areas south of us obviously got hit harder than we did and they still don't know when the power is going to be back up. We're hoping to have ours back up by Tuesday night/early Wednesday morning and university classes are supposed to resume Wednesday.....until then I'll probably just be killing time up here practicing or just chillin at home, waiting it out.

 

So for all those in the Houston area affected by this mess; stay safe.....and I shall do the same.

[Danpod]

Thank you for the update! We all really appreciate it. Stay safe and enjoy the extra practice time!

[TRtrumpet]

We didn't even get rain down here. But the four day weekend was nice.

[mbui]

I'm home. Finally. My town was hit pretty good. Down trees, power lines, and signs. The apartment complex next to me was destroyed. They don't have a roof anymore. Luckily, my apartment complex has electricity, water, cable, and internet since 60% of the town is without it. My apartment suffered some minor roof and water damage. The chimney flew off and took parts of the ceiling with it. The majority of the restaurants and gas stations are still closed, but I'm sure that will change once water and electric are all back online.

 

All in all, it could have been a lot worse. I'm just glad to be home.

[borchnork]

Chris, or dtxtrmpt, didn't evacuate during Ike. He had me pretty scared, because Dickinson is right next to Galveston Bay. From what he tells me, the marching season there may be over for them... He's said it'll be about a month before they reopen school and a lot of the bands kid ended up losing their homes, so he's not entirely sure how things will turn out.

 

But I'm glad that he's okay. =]

[CaviBoy09]

HUrricane ike was **** and threw all the bands at the bottom of texas off wich is a **** since L.D. Bell probably didn't get nething