Thieves hit TVMA offices on night of hurricane

Austin, Texas

-- As evacuees fleeing Hurricane Ike poured into Austin over the weekend, thieves broke into the offices of the Texas Veterinary Medical Association offices and made off with a computer and several monitors.

"We're located just a block off a major highway, plus there was lots of evacuee activity going on with people coming in from Houston and Galveston, so the thieves probably just took advantage of the situation," says Lindsey Oeschle, a communications specialist with TVMA.

Two high school buildings used as an evacuation shelter are near the offices.

The intruders smashed a window on the ground floor of the two-story building and went to the second floor, taking the computer and monitors used by the TVMA's creative department to produce veterinary publications, Oeschle says.

"Other than the broken glass, they didn't cause much damage, and they weren't very smart, taking mostly the monitors. We believe it happened Saturday night (the hurricane made landfall around Galveston about 2 a.m. Sunday). Unfortunately, the one computer they took was mine, as I discovered when I came in Monday morning," Oeschle says.

Austin lies west of the hurricane's path. "We barely got a drop of rain at the time," Oeschle recalls. "It seems weird to be that close to the worst of the storm and barely feel anything, and then read about people as far away as Indiana still feeling some harsh effects from it a day later," she says.