Official Luthiers Forum!

Thought I'd check in and give you folks a report.

You can log onto weather.com for a look at what Rita's up to right now, btw.

Houston made it through the 'cane without problems, as far as I've been able to determine. Port Arthur, Beaumont, and SW Louisiana got hammered, though. Been listening to the radio and according to the reports, there is very little flooding or wind damage here. Power is out to about 1 million customers, including us. I'm on dial up, running on my lap top's battery power.   This thing's battery only lasts for about an hour now, so I'm not gonna hang out on the net for long.

We're good here. We didn't get much rain, and I doubt if the winds ever gusted above 50 mph. I've been through more severe localized thunderstorms. We have a bunch of small branches in the yard from our oak trees -- they always shed little branches in a stiff wind. The pecan tree in the back shed a branch, which I consider a gift because it will be used for barbeque smokewood, and that's about it. I had left a couple of items sitting atop a work table under the patio last night and they're still sitting there this morning.

According to the news reports, even though Rita is well to the north and east of us, it is still a Cat 2 with 100 mph sustained winds, so it is still a serious threat to people in east TX, NW Louisiana and southern Arkansas. So if any of you folks are up in those areas -- hehe, now I get to say it :) -- keep your head down!

Well, here's hoping we'll be getting power back sometime today. Even if we don't we're good. We've got a gas range and even though the electronic pilot is out, we can still light it with a match. And we've got water. We dumped ice into a cooler last night so we don't have to open the refrigerators. So, I think even in terms of perisihables, we should be OK.

Be back soon,

Michael

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