Tuesday, September 27, 2005

Hurricane Rita: We Dodged the Bullet



Well, there was quite a bit of controlled drama at SHRS this past week. Turns out that those of us who evacuated for hurricane Rita faired far worse than we who decided to stay.

We spent the days leading up to the storm securing our gear, but most importantly, securing all our tapes, media and data. FYI: audio tape can be dried out and cleaned. I once did a session on a reel of 2" tape that had sat in an abandoned car for seven years. The auto in question was a convertable!!! The box was a mildewed, wrinkled mess. I had to clean the machine constantly, but I DID get the session transferrred to clean tape and continued on. The music sucked, by the way. Had it stayed hidden, the world probably would have done ok.


Securing binary info; hard drives, digital tape, and dvd backups require a lot more TLC. We put all of our that stuff in water resistant plastic containers (they are supposed to be water proof, but what does that mean in a storm?).

We busied ourselves, covering all of our gear with plastic in case one of our 5 buildings lost a roof (or two). Turns out that we didn't even get a half inch of rain.

We took great care with the microphones. Our visiting/family producers all have gear here. We did our mighty-best to protect it all.

There are still six more weeks until the end of hurricane season,..... I guess that we know how to do it now!

2 Comments:

Blogger AudreyVan said...

it's good to hear that nothing got damaged:)

10:16 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I woulda used bubble wrap to cover up all the equipment. That way, not only does it protect the gear, but also it provides entertainment post-hurricane. And with a huge roll of it, you could wrap yourself in it and see how fast a bus has to go, hitting you head-on, before you a) pop a bubble b) feel it.

Glad you and the SugarHill family are all ok. And now you can use the chain saw onstage!

4:35 PM  

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