Hurricane Nicholas Update - Sept. 14, 9:30 am
As we announced earlier this morning, Rice has cancelled classes and all other instructional activities today (Tuesday, Sept. 14) in the aftermath of Hurricane Nicholas. That applies not only to classes held in person, but also remotely. We made this decision because CenterPoint’s reports of widespread power outages indicate that a significant number of our students and faculty are without electrical power and many would have trouble accessing online instruction. Up-to-date information on power outages can be viewed on the CenterPoint Outage tracker.
Tropical Storm Nicholas is moving out of the Houston area and conditions should improve throughout the day. For up-to-date information on weather conditions in our area, you can click here to link to the National Weather Service.
Our campus fared well during the storm. Although we have the capability to generate our own power, we didn’t have to use our generators because the campus never lost power from CenterPoint during the storm. Our FE&P crews were out early this morning cleaning branches and other debris off of the roads. Inspections of every building are underway, but there appears to be little damage. If you return to campus and discover damage to your office or anywhere else within your building, please submit a service request using the FE&P portal at https://rice.tririga.com/. If it’s an emergency, please email TRIRIGA@rice.edu or call (713) 348-2485.
RUPD reports the campus roadways are clear. To monitor the current traffic conditions in the Houston area, click here to link to Houston Transtar.
The Rice Student Center, Fondren Library and Rice Recreation Center all plan to reopen at noon. The Rice shuttle service will also resume operations at noon.
Undergraduate campus dining services are operating normally, with the exception of Baker College Kitchen, which is closed for breakfast and lunch. The Brochstein Pavilion and Little Bird HTX (inside the Rice Student Center) are expected to reopen at noon today. The Cohen House, Curbside at the Club and Ambassador Cafe will all be closed today.
If you temporarily parked your car in the Cambridge / Entrance 3 parking garage as a precaution during the storm, please move it out of the garage by 7 a.m. tommorow.
As a reminder, COVID-19 testing for today has been canceled. You can reschedule your test here for later in the week.
Flu shots scheduled for today at the Cambridge Office Building will be rescheduled. Notification of the new scheduling date will be forthcoming.
At this point, we expect pretty much everything on campus, including classroom instruction, to return to normal operations tomorrow. But in the meantime, please stay safe as the remnants of this storm pass through the Houston area.
Rice Crisis Management Team