Just arrived back home. Took a quick drive to the studio. Sitting outside waiting for a locksmith to show up. Someone bashed in all my schlage locks trying to get the building open. They did a nice little number on the door knobs as well and were smart enough to cut my power thinking it would disrupt the camera system which was disabled anyway. Ugh.
oh geez. Did they get in? That kind of stuff pisses me off.
I can’t tell because I’m still locked out but that certainly wasn’t a power line they cut…the power lines in a thick metal tube. I think it was the internet line. I can’t see inside… I can’t imagine how they got in then locked the doors from the inside. I’ll know in an hour or so.
Good gravy… people are such lowlifes sometimes!! Sure hope they failed to get in.
How does the rest of your town look? How bad was it hit?
They beat the stuffing out of these poor little locks. They bashed them so hard the battery packs on the other side of the door were dented in, but they’re holding up. I’m gonna sleep at the studio tonight on the couch in the lobby because the lock smith couldn’t pick them and I had to break a window to get in to the building. Window guy is coming early in the morning. But all the sandbags behind the doors weren’t moved, and nothings missing, so the burglars definitely didn’t make it past the entry way to the control room. Its a REALLY good thing that I closed all the blinds, I had a lot of high dollar gear in the lobby. They might have doubled up their efforts if they’d known what was inside!
I’m about to go back to the house and pick up my wife. I haven’t taken a look around but the sun was shining and the roads were dry on our way back. I waited until one of my friends went back then asked him how bad it was. From what little I saw, the wind had blown some debris around but I didn’t see anything that looked damaged. I heard it was pretty bad on the east and north sides of town.
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Ok. There’s definitely some real damage here. Most of the city has its power back, but some streets had some drainage backup. Not to the point where you’d have to take boat to the other end, but just enough to damage the floors and certain merchandise sitting on the floors in some shops. I was gonna drive Danae around and have her take some pictures (so she can practice with the camera in lower lighting) but it got real dark and started pouring hard again so I left her at the house and high tailed it back to the studio building for the night.
To answer your question, from what I can see so far, the damage is real hit or miss here, and the flooding is less extreme than the news leads you to believe 
Good to hear your studio is ok. By the sounds of it Shlage makes some really good locks
No doubt @Jonathan! I’d email those guys and tell them the story of the locks! Pretty astounding really
They come with lifetime warranties. I’m about to find out if those warranties mean anything lol.
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It sounds like a real good news/bad news. Good news, you are safe, and you new studio is mostly unscathed. Bad news, people can still suck. Really good to hear things are mostly OK for you!
Bryan has a good idea! Take lots of pictures, and be sure and get your studio in the background, maybe even a business card or something on a desk, then send the story to Shlage with how much $$ they saved you with their excellent locks. You might get some FREE marketing out of it. 
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I glad everything turned out ok.
Scumbags like this are the reason a lot of people don’t want to leave their property and are put at risk during major weather events.
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Good to hear that the looters didn’t get to your expensive equipment. Unfortunately there’s people that will always be ready to prey on others and are just looking for an opening to get what they want. Definitely aggravating!
I was watching youtube footage of looting in Wilmington and some other towns in North Carolina and reading the comment section below the videos. The videos showed me the bad side of mankind and the comment section was maybe even more disturbing. It was basically a slew of insults against “the others”, anyone different. Blacks vs whites, the right vs the left,…Jeez, what the hell is wrong with so many people? Where is “Love Thy Neighbour”? Too many of us are becoming suckered into being “against” anything that is different than ourselves. We need to watch that we don’t become too rigid in our thinking.
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Twitter with pics #Schlage and #YourStudio, at least free promotion
I like the idea of showing Schlage the lock damage, but not so sure I’d advertise what the looters missed out on. I’m guessing that’s just asking for a re-visit
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Too bad you didn’t have that door wired with some high voltage…And oh yes a trail cam to capture the event so we could all enjoy it over and over again…bastards
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This sounds like people that know there is something valuable inside but not how valuable. They have maybe scoped out the place. If they were smart they would have busted a window. They are obviously not that experienced. They put a lot of effort trying to break a lock which would have drawn attention if anyone was around. Busting a window and walking in would have drawn less attention. If they didn’t go after other houses/businesses or garages than I’d say they are eyeballing your studio.
I agree. People suck! When people are good they tend to be amazing.
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I never cease to be astonished how some people can be so amazing, while others can be such total douchebags. Hardly seems possible, but there it is.
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looters…no power, floods…they didnt go through thew windows?
did they want a large item? door size?
maybe obese and lazy…most theives are very lazy a cop told me once, he said often just having a dog of any kind barking will send them somewhere else because theyre so lazy they dont want to deal with a dog…
owning a studio though, seems that would be like a jewelry store…kind of Pawn Shop worthy stuff.
if it was a dumbass they would take the guitar and leave the Crane items.
if it was someone whose been there in the studio would grab the Bluebird mics and Crane and leave the guitar amps etc…
im guessing.
those camera security systems are cool.
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Yea, I’m guessing a pawn shop owner would wonder what a young punk would be doing with a rack of Crane Song gear.
The cops around here ride the pawn stores pretty hard looking for stolen gear. Most owners are clean, but I still read about 1 or 2 a year busted for knowingly buying stolen merchandise.
In the early 80s we had an audio store in town called HI-FI Kenny who had piles of obviously stolen gear. Car stereos with only a couple of inches of wires left on back where they were quickly cut or pry marks on the face plate. He was eventually busted and shut down, but it took a while.
When I was going to school, I rented a cheap apartment in a seedy section of town and had my car stereo stolen a few times. After the 2nd unit was stolen, I went out and bought a cheapo used unit, gutted the insides and wired a military grade smoke bomb inside using a Estes rocket igniter to fire when the switch was turned on. I wasn’t able to actually see what happened, but my stereo was never stolen again after that.
I’m assuming that he wired it up in a car and was very surprised to find huge clouds of smoke rolling out of it.
Those military smokers would last for at least 15 minutes.
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