You may have wondered why you didn't hear our talented John Aielli on the radio asking you to support KUT for a brief part of this morning. That's because he was outside of the KUT studios along with a large crowd of people that were evacuated from our cozy home in Communications Building B on the UT-Austin campus.
A fire alarm went off before 10:00 a.m., less than an hour after Aielli took the airwaves. So he improvised.
"There's a tape we have that's called 'The Fire Tape,' and it plays all of your favorite hits," Aielli told KUT News, as he stood in the plaza outside the communications buildings with other KUT staff, volunteers and UT students evacuated from the building.
Fire officials tell KUT that the motor on a freight elevator in our building started to smoke, and that set off alarms throughout the building. No fire, plenty of smoke near the top of the building, but nothing else.
While folks at the station waited for the "all clear," listeners calling in pledges were forwarded to a call center off campus where their pledges could be recorded.
KUT was back up and running about 10:15 a.m., and KUT volunteers picked up the phones again ready to take your pledge of support.
