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The latest on the freeze heading towards Austin · Austin Signal

0:08
The forecast continues to evolve
0:10
as an arctic cold front heads toward
0:12
the Austin area this weekend.
0:14
Temperatures are forecast to remain
0:15
below freezing starting Saturday
0:17
night here in Central Texas, and
0:18
they could stay that way through
0:20
Monday.
0:21
The latest forecasts and updates
0:23
from city officials, that's coming
0:24
up on today's show.
0:26
The Austin Signal is a production
0:28
of KUT News, hosted by
0:30
Jerry Quijano.
0:31
Austin Community College's free
0:33
tuition pilot program ballooned to
0:34
nearly 10,000 students this
0:36
academic year.
0:37
The students who are being impacted
0:39
and the things that they're learning
0:40
about.
0:41
And Huston Tillotson University's
0:43
Jazz Orchestra is among the top
0:44
bands in the country.
0:46
We'll hear about their competition
0:47
last weekend in New York.
0:49
Plus photojournalism collides with
0:51
original songwriting in the new
0:52
project, Witness.
0:54
We have more about that coming up
0:56
on Austin Signal.
1:08
Howdy, it's Austin Signal.
1:10
Thank you for making us part of
1:12
your Friday.
1:13
Let's get right into it because we
1:14
have a lot to share with you.
1:16
A massive Arctic front is bearing
1:17
down on central Texas.
1:19
The National Weather Service expects
1:20
it could bring freezing temperatures
1:21
to Austin through maybe Tuesday
1:23
with a chance of freezing rain or
1:26
sleet. At a news conference today,
1:28
Austin Mayor Kirk Watson's message
1:29
was simple.
1:31
Winter is here.
1:33
KUT's Andrew Weber has been covering
1:35
the storm And this week he has more
1:37
about preparations.
1:38
The days-long blast of cold air
1:40
is expected to bring some freezing
1:42
rain or sleet to Austin sometime
1:44
Saturday, likely in the afternoon.
1:47
That Arctic blast could coat
1:48
Austin's roads in a fine glaze
1:50
of ice, and it could weigh
1:52
down the city's dense tree canopy,
1:54
presenting the risk of power outages
1:56
if limbs tumble down onto power
1:58
lines like they did in 2023.
2:00
Travis County Judge Andy Brown
2:01
issued a disaster declaration today
2:03
ahead of the front.
2:04
At a news conference this morning,
2:06
he was joined by Mayor Watson.
2:07
Who had a simple request.
2:09
If you don't need to be out over
2:11
the weekend, please don't
2:13
be out, don't be on the streets
2:15
and get your home
2:17
ready.
2:18
Watson Brown and other officials
2:20
urged Austinites and Central Texans
2:22
to have a plan.
2:23
Jason Runyon with the National
2:24
Weather Service said this
2:26
dangerously cold weather system
2:28
could bring up to a quarter inch of
2:30
ice accumulation starting Saturday
2:31
when freezing rain and sleet are
2:33
expected to hit the hill country.
2:35
Runyon added that the forecast is
2:37
changing.
2:38
He urges residents to keep up
2:40
to date on the forecast.
2:41
This forecast is still evolving,
2:43
even over the next 24 to 36 hours.
2:46
While our confidence is increasing
2:48
on the overall impacts,
2:50
fluctuations in the ICE forecast are
2:52
still possible and likely.
2:54
While ERCOT, the state's electrical
2:55
grid operator, says it does not
2:57
anticipate large-scale power
2:59
outages, the local concern about
3:01
Austin Energy's grid is very
3:03
real. Ice weighed down tree limbs
3:04
across the city in 2023,
3:07
causing outages for hundreds of
3:08
thousands of Austinites for days.
3:10
General Manager Stuart Riley said
3:12
the city-owned utility has spent the
3:14
years since retooling and improving
3:16
its responses to winter weather.
3:18
Austin Energy is fully staffed and
3:20
is prepared to reach out to other
3:22
utilities
3:23
need be.
3:24
Austin Energy over the past few
3:25
years has done a great deal to
3:27
prepare for storms,
3:29
in particular to prepare for winter
3:30
storms like what we're facing right
3:32
now. Our crews are ready, our
3:33
staffing plans are in place, so we
3:35
are the most prepared that we have
3:37
ever been for a winter storm.
3:39
Watson and others advised Austinites
3:41
to have a plan in place in case the
3:43
power goes out, check on your
3:44
neighbors, and make sure you have
3:46
enough food and water ahead of the
3:48
front. I'm Andrew Weber in Austin.
3:53
As conversations about the costs
3:55
of higher education continue,
3:57
community colleges have seen a small
3:58
percentage increase in enrollment.
4:01
Now this is true for Austin
4:02
Community College as well,
4:04
but another factor is ACC's
4:06
free tuition pilot program.
4:08
It launched in the fall of 2024 and
4:10
a year later saw double
4:12
the number of participants.
4:14
For more about this story, we're
4:15
speaking with KUT's Greta
4:17
Diaz-Gonzalez-Vasquez.
4:18
Thanks for coming on Austin Signal.
4:19
Hi Jerry, thank you for having me.
4:21
Yeah, so remind us, what
4:23
is this free pilot program?
4:24
I'm assuming it's free tuition, but
4:25
what is the goal behind this?
4:27
Yes, that's right.
4:28
So it's free tuition and no fees
4:30
for students who graduated
4:32
after July 2023
4:35
in the ACC service
4:37
area or students who got their GED
4:39
after that date, also students who
4:41
were homeschooled.
4:42
And the idea is that more students
4:44
can access college education
4:46
because we all know that is very
4:48
expensive.
4:48
And was there a reason why they
4:50
wanted to start this program?
4:51
It was just, I'm guessing, to
4:52
increase enrollment, to increase
4:54
education among the community.
4:56
What was the reason they wanted to
4:57
start it in the first place?
4:58
Yeah, so back in 2024, when
5:00
the pilot program was approved, ACC
5:02
officials said that at least
5:04
12,000 Central Texas
5:06
high school graduates were not
5:08
going into college.
5:09
So they hadn't enrolled to college
5:11
after graduating.
5:13
And so they wanted to bring that
5:15
number down, make sure that people
5:16
had access to
5:18
college, but not only that, that
5:19
they would be able to enroll and
5:21
also stay in college because maybe
5:23
you can do the first year, but then,
5:24
you know, the budget
5:26
changes.
5:27
Yeah, right.
5:27
It changes, things change as we hear on
5:28
the radio, you know, things are
5:29
always changing.
5:30
Different factors are impacting
5:32
people's ability to do anything and
5:34
everything here in Austin and across
5:36
the country.
5:37
So I know that you've spoken with
5:38
folks at ACC.
5:40
So first off, I wanted to ask you,
5:42
what are the kinds, who are the kind
5:43
of students that are benefiting from
5:45
this program so far.
5:46
Right, yeah, I spoke to Jenna
5:47
Kulinane-Hagee and she is
5:50
the Vice Chancellor of Institutional
5:52
Research and Analytics and she
5:54
was telling me that they did
5:55
interviews with students who have
5:57
benefited from this program and she
5:59
said there are three main groups
6:01
that have benefited from this.
6:02
The first is students who thought
6:03
they wouldn't go to college because
6:05
they couldn't afford to go to
6:06
College.
6:07
Second is students, who thought well
6:09
maybe I can wait a couple of work
6:11
a little bit, save money, and then
6:13
go to college.
6:14
Uh, studies find that those students
6:16
rarely go to college.
6:18
And the third group was students who
6:20
plan on getting a certificate and
6:23
then jumping into the workforce.
6:24
They now can go to and
6:26
get an associate or even a
6:28
bachelor's degree.
6:29
Now I mentioned at the top that this
6:32
program has doubled in size, this
6:33
current academic year is featuring
6:35
about nearly 10,000 students
6:37
who are benefiting from this
6:38
program.
6:39
What were the numbers in the first
6:40
year and how much of that might be
6:42
a little bit of a crossover?
6:44
Yeah that's right the first year it
6:46
was around 5 000 students but then
6:48
you know that not all of them will
6:50
come back
6:50
These are not all unique students,
6:52
right?
6:52
Right. But then they also realized
6:54
that a lot of those students were
6:55
coming back.
6:56
The rate of students that would come
6:58
back every semester would
7:00
also increase because students can
7:01
stay in college.
7:03
And then this year with the two
7:05
cohorts is almost 10,000 students.
7:07
OK.
7:08
What kinds of programs are these
7:09
students learning about?
7:11
What kind of classes are they
7:12
taking?
7:13
You know, they said that they are
7:14
taking all kinds of classes, but
7:16
there were three programs that ACC
7:18
saw an increase on enrollment
7:20
this year.
7:21
And they're mainly workforce-aligned
7:23
programs or health-related programs.
7:26
And so it was advanced
7:27
manufacturing, skilled trades,
7:29
and health sciences.
7:31
Those three programs saw at least
7:33
a 17% increase in
7:36
enrollment. And I have to
7:38
say ACC saw a 7%
7:41
increase, And that would be.
7:42
Around 41,000 students.
7:44
And out of all these students, out
7:46
of that 41,024 are
7:48
part of this pilot program according
7:50
to our math.
7:51
Okay, according to your math, okay,
7:53
excellent. Well, we have more about
7:54
this story over at KUT.org.
7:57
Greta Diaz-Gonzalez Vasquez
8:00
is a morning edition producer here
8:01
at KUt, but you will be hearing more
8:03
of her here on Austin Signal,
8:05
KUT's education reporter,
8:07
Greta Dias-Gonsalez-Vasquez.
8:09
Thanks for coming on the show, we
8:10
appreciate you.
8:11
Thank you, Jerry.
8:17
Huston-Tillotson University's Jazz
8:19
Orchestra is among the top
8:20
bands in the country after their
8:22
finish at the National Collegiate
8:24
Jazz Competition in New York last
8:26
weekend.
8:27
As KUT's Katy McAfee reports,
8:29
Huston- Tillotson was the smallest
8:30
school selected to perform and
8:32
the only all undergraduate
8:34
band.
8:36
Huston Tillotson's jazz program
8:37
didn't exist until about four years
8:39
ago.
8:40
That's when Jeremy George rolled the
8:42
dice and left his job teaching music
8:44
at the high school level in Florida
8:45
to develop the university's jazz
8:47
programs.
8:48
Before I moved here and
8:50
took this job, I didn't know
8:51
anything about Huston-Tillerson
8:53
University.
8:54
You know, I was over in Florida,
8:56
like, working at Huston- Tillerson,
8:57
this job opening, where?
8:59
Where is it?
8:59
George says once he got to Austin,
9:01
he realized even people in Austin
9:04
haven't heard of Huston Tillotson.
9:06
But within four years, his students
9:07
were on stage at Austin city limits
9:09
and playing next to Wynton Marsalis
9:11
at a residency in Virginia.
9:17
Still, George felt like his band,
9:19
only a few years old and with
9:21
limited funding, was kind of an
9:23
underdog.
9:24
Being selected to perform at the
9:25
National Collegiate Jazz Competition
9:27
was a stretch.
9:29
Until September, when George
9:30
got an email.
9:31
I looked at it and I closed my
9:33
phone. I was like, this can't be
9:34
what I read.
9:37
Only 10 schools are selected to play
9:38
at nationals each year.
9:40
That's out of hundreds of programs,
9:42
many with 20 plus years of
9:43
performances behind them.
9:45
Huston Tillotson was one of just two
9:47
schools from Texas selected to
9:48
perform, the other being UT.
9:51
The competition goes like this.
9:53
Each band plays three songs.
9:55
Two of them have to be from Duke
9:57
Ellington's library.
10:02
And if you're not familiar,
10:03
Ellington is widely considered one
10:05
of the greatest American composers
10:07
of all time.
10:08
The third tune can be a student
10:10
arrangement or a piece from the Jazz
10:12
at Lincoln Center Library.
10:13
That adds up to a performance that
10:15
lasts about 18 minutes.
10:17
George and the band practiced those
10:19
18 minutes for more than four
10:21
months.
10:22
Dorian Verner is a third year
10:24
percussion student.
10:25
He says he had his eye on this
10:27
competition for years and
10:28
rehearsing for it felt like getting
10:30
ready for battle.
10:31
That was my mindset going into it
10:33
the whole time, because
10:35
we were about to be in front of
10:37
the biggest jazz schools in
10:40
the nation,
10:41
and coming from Austin, Texas all
10:43
the way to New York, like one of
10:45
the big jazz cities in the world.
10:47
But when competition day came,
10:49
George says he told his students to
10:51
focus, not on the audience,
10:54
not about the fact that they're
10:55
playing in New York, focus
10:57
on the music.
10:59
We blocked the world out, and
11:01
it was all about us in
11:02
that moment.
11:03
As soon as I say it, one, two,
11:05
three, four.
11:24
I didn't even think about the
11:26
fact that you know thousands
11:28
of people were watching online and
11:30
you know there were hundreds of
11:31
people in the audience.
11:33
Not at all.
11:34
I just, I was with my students.
11:43
Joshua Saffold plays trumpet in the
11:45
band. He says the whole performance
11:47
was a blur.
11:48
I walked on and then I walked off.
11:52
Like, everything happened so
11:54
fast.
11:55
Verner said this, too.
11:56
The gravity of their performance
11:58
didn't hit him until the next day.
12:00
Sitting and watching and listening
12:01
to the performance that we had on
12:02
Sunday, that was probably
12:04
the best we have ever sounded.
12:11
Huston Tillotson came in third
12:12
place.
12:13
Michigan State University finished
12:15
second, and Temple University
12:17
came out on top.
12:18
With the third place win, I asked
12:20
George, is the Huston Tillotson
12:22
Jazz Orchestra still an underdog?
12:24
We are no longer the underdogs.
12:27
Technically, we
12:28
are the third best jazz program
12:30
in the world.
12:32
Think of that.
12:32
I'm Katy McAfee in Austin.
12:39
The Huston Tillotson University Jazz
12:41
Orchestra will be back on the big
12:42
stage in April.
12:43
They open for Parliament Funkadelic
12:45
at the Austin Blues Festival at
12:47
Waterloo Park.
12:49
Follow more KUT Art Beat coverage
12:51
at KUT.org and
12:52
we've got more Austin signal for
12:54
you after this break.
13:01
This is Austin Signal.
13:03
Austin-based photojournalist Tamir
13:05
Khalifa has covered numerous stories
13:07
over his career, from Hurricane
13:09
Harvey to the aftermath for victims
13:10
of mass shootings in El Paso in 2019
13:13
and Robb Elementary in Uvalde in
13:15
2022.
13:17
But along with the images that he's
13:18
made, Khalifa also penned lyrics and
13:20
music inspired by the events in
13:22
a project that he calls Witness,
13:24
which is debuting tonight out at the
13:26
Long Center.
13:27
He brought this new project to
13:28
Studio 1A here at KUT and
13:31
spoke about it with Texas Standards'
13:32
Laura Rice.
13:34
Absolutely. Well, it's actually your
13:36
second time on our program and the
13:38
last time we spoke, almost a year
13:39
ago exactly, you had just
13:41
been awarded the American Mosaic
13:43
Journalism Prize for your
13:45
photography in Uvalde.
13:46
And I understand you actually took
13:48
that prize money and put it toward
13:49
this new project, which explores
13:51
Uvalda and beyond.
13:53
What do you want people to know
13:54
about witness?
13:56
So, Witness is a combination
13:58
of my photographs and
14:00
music that has been inspired by
14:02
my reporting and experiences behind
14:03
the camera.
14:05
So, Uvalde, the songs I wrote
14:07
about Uvalade, three of them, are
14:09
the emotional center of the piece,
14:11
but this project is really
14:13
career spanning.
14:14
It covers my
14:16
time documenting the
14:18
Texas-Mexico border, the Walmart
14:20
shooting in El Paso, the
14:22
pandemic, Hurricane Harvey.
14:24
And covering the Kilauea Volcano
14:26
eruption in Hawaii in 2018.
14:28
And so throughout all of
14:30
my experiences in all of these
14:32
places, the theme
14:34
that kept emerging
14:36
was that when people are pushed to
14:38
their limits and to their extremes,
14:40
they can reveal an extraordinary
14:41
resilience.
14:43
And music has always been an
14:45
important method for me to process
14:47
some of what I've experienced and
14:49
some of I've witnessed.
14:51
And starting in 2018, I started
14:53
writing music about it and trying to
14:55
make sense of it while also trying
14:56
to appreciate some
14:58
of the people I've met along the
14:59
way. And so this project is rooted
15:01
in a sense of care and
15:03
compassion for these people and
15:05
these issues, but it's also an
15:07
attempt to prolong some
15:09
of, the lifespan and the relevance
15:11
of some of this work, which
15:13
some of it's years old.
15:15
And as we know, the
15:17
pace of the news cycle moves.
15:19
Extremely quickly and some
15:21
of the work that we do tends to get
15:23
looked past very quickly as it's
15:25
eclipsed by whatever else is
15:27
happening and so this is this
15:28
project is an attempt to
15:30
Slow down a little bit to linger
15:32
and it's grounded in the humanity
15:34
that made these stories urgent in
15:36
the first place
15:37
You mentioned some of the topics
15:39
there, also COVID,
15:41
immigration, the El Paso
15:43
shooting.
15:44
These are really heavy stories.
15:46
You were writing along the way, but
15:48
were you also re-exploring as you
15:50
entered into this project?
15:52
Yeah, absolutely, I found that the
15:54
writing process actually sort of
15:56
seeped into the songs
15:58
in their totality and sometimes when
15:59
I was thinking of, when I writing
16:01
one piece, say
16:03
about Uvaldi, I was actually
16:04
thinking about something in
16:05
Hurricane Harvey and vice versa.
16:08
And so it's really been an
16:10
experience that has combined all of
16:11
these different elements and
16:12
different experiences, but I've
16:14
tried to make the music as
16:16
accessible as can be.
16:18
Well, you talk about combining music
16:20
and your photojournalism.
16:22
What does that look like in
16:24
practice? This is really an
16:25
experiential project that you've put
16:27
together.
16:28
Yeah, so I'm still figuring
16:30
it out myself, but this
16:33
project really is an
16:35
experience or at least I want it to
16:37
be.
16:38
And so I've developed a
16:39
performance where as
16:41
we play the songs and as I
16:43
sing them, I screen the
16:45
photographs that inspired the songs
16:47
and I've timed it so that when
16:49
you hear a certain lyric, you see an
16:51
image that actually in some cases
16:53
inspired that exact line.
16:56
And during the performance I
16:58
try to tie it all together
17:00
with stories about
17:03
some of my experiences that
17:05
in some ways pulls the, draws the
17:07
curtain from behind journalism
17:09
and helps just give a little bit
17:10
more insight into the humanity
17:12
that underlies it all.
17:15
They woke up
17:17
on America's
17:21
doorstep
17:28
What's another day,
17:31
what's another hour?
17:38
Bottle for a shower,
17:41
they woke up
17:44
Above the Rio Grande,
17:47
when past the razor wire
17:49
They could see the
17:51
texas skies for
17:53
three days
17:56
And three nights
17:59
The bridge was a bedroom with
18:01
headlights for nightlights And now
18:04
they're
18:06
waiting at the
18:08
border
18:10
Is this something you always wanted
18:11
to do, or did it kind of come up as
18:13
a dream that was made possible
18:16
in part by winning this prize?
18:17
I mean, how did this come about?
18:19
So I played in Austin
18:21
bands for many years, one of them
18:22
was Mother Falcon and I'm grateful
18:24
to be joined by some of the members
18:25
of that band, but we played in
18:27
Austin for many years and
18:30
I always, part of me wanted to make
18:32
music about photography
18:33
because as I was in the band I was
18:35
also starting to take on
18:37
assignments and more ambitious
18:38
projects and I wanted to do
18:40
something that combined all of these
18:41
things, I just didn't quite know
18:43
how.
18:43
I've long felt that
18:46
the whole can be greater than the
18:47
sum of its parts.
18:49
And so by combining music
18:51
and photography, I can
18:52
try to present an experience
18:55
that I hope is more powerful than
18:57
the two of them independently.
18:59
You've mentioned this wonderful
19:01
group of musicians with you.
19:03
There's really someone especially I
19:05
want you to introduce first.
19:06
Could you talk to me about
19:08
your co-vocalist here?
19:10
Yeah, so I'm actually getting chills
19:12
just out of gratitude.
19:14
But I'm joined here by Jasmine
19:16
Casades.
19:18
And she is truly one
19:20
of the most extraordinary young
19:21
women I've ever had the privilege of
19:23
meeting. And I feel immensely
19:25
grateful that she's joined us
19:26
here. And I'd like her to
19:29
just introduce herself.
19:31
Well, yes, I'm Jasmine Casades.
19:33
I'm from Ivaldi, Texas.
19:35
I'm the eldest sister of Jackie
19:36
Gossetis, who lost her life at Robb
19:38
Elementary.
19:39
So tell me why you get involved in
19:41
this project.
19:42
Tamir asked me to.
19:44
Well, it was one of the first
19:46
songs that Tamir
19:48
showed us was Jackie's song
19:50
and just
19:52
to participate in a project like
19:54
this that memorializes
19:57
my sister in such a
19:58
different and unique way.
20:00
I'm just very, very honored and
20:02
very grateful to keep
20:05
sharing my sister's story.
20:06
There's a rock
20:08
from Uvalde
20:10
on a ledge by
20:12
the banks of the Seine
20:16
It's tucked in the roots
20:18
of an ivy
20:21
bush Jackie's name
20:23
is written in white
20:27
She'd always dreamed
20:30
of Sien, the
20:32
city of light
20:36
I met the Kastas family early on,
20:40
covering the aftermath of the New
20:41
York Times.
20:43
And Jasmine had recognized me from
20:45
some of the time I had spent in the
20:46
square, and we just really forged a
20:48
meaningful connection and bond.
20:50
And I found out Jasmine was an
20:51
amazing singer, and I brought my
20:52
guitar, and we started singing all
20:54
sorts of different songs.
20:55
And then I just brought them a song
20:57
one day that I had written about
20:59
them. And then it's sort of been
21:01
this amazing, it's been just
21:02
an amazing journey since then.
21:07
All of the
21:12
All of the things
21:14
that'll check me
21:25
After such a tragedy, like the
21:27
one that happened in New Valdi, the
21:29
relationship between media and the
21:30
people that these stories are being
21:32
told about is such a complicated
21:34
one, and the way
21:36
that Tamir is telling these stories
21:38
so beautifully and so respectfully,
21:40
I just, just props
21:42
to Tamir.
21:44
Tamir Khalifa is a musician
21:47
and photojournalist based in
21:49
Austin. His latest project is
21:51
Witness.
21:52
We'll share videos of these
21:53
performances and links to more at
21:55
TexasStandard.org and on the Texas
21:57
Standard 82 page.
21:59
Tamir, Jasmine, all of you,
22:01
thank you so much.
22:02
All of the things
22:04
that'll check you
22:22
And you can find more about this
22:24
story and this Studio 1A performance
22:26
over at kut.org.
22:30
That is it for today here on
22:31
Austin Signal and for this week here
22:33
on the Austin Signal.
22:35
Remember, you need to have multiple
22:37
ways to stay weather aware as we
22:38
head into this weekend.
22:40
We're gonna be doing our best to
22:41
keep you updated on the latest at
22:43
kut.org, on the
22:45
KUT app and the Kut social
22:47
media channels.
22:48
So be sure to follow us there.
22:50
Thank you to Andrew Weber, Greta
22:51
Diaz-Gonzalez-Vasquez, Katy McAfee,
22:54
and Laura Rice for their help with
22:55
today's episode.
22:56
Have a great weekend, stay safe.
22:58
This is Austin Signal.