Texans knew it could strike anywhere along their coast with devastating effects.

In South Texas, people sealed their homes and prepared to escape.
"At night, you're boarding up your house and all through the neighborhood, you could hear power saws and hammers. It's pitch dark except for the stars," said Fred Jordan, News Director at KRIS-TV, Corpus Christi. Immediately after the storm, he explained to Rundown readers how he and his team had survived and covered Gilbert.

Not only did they have to worry about covering the story, the broadcasters also had to worry about their own families coping with strong winds and heavy rains.
"We prepared for Gilbert by putting everyone on 24-hour call. We camped out at the station and worked shifts. Some people slept while others worked," explained Jordan.

Coverage preparation was divided into three phases: hurricane watch, hurricane warning and hurricane impact. The crews were told what to do in each phase.
For instance, in a warning situation, staffers were told to bring in their own bedding, water and food to the station so they had their own needs taken care of for the duration of the storm.
"We gave the crews time to go home and get their houses boarded up and get their supplies," he said.
When staffers returned to work, they were allowed to bring their families with them if they wished.

When the station was constructed in the early 1950s, it was built to withstand a direct hit by a hurricane. It was built on high ground and had lots of steel and extra thick walls.
"This is home to a lot of people whenever there is a hurricane," Jordan said.
During Gilbert, the KRIS sales offices became the dormitory because the area didn't have any windows and was the safest from high winds. They turned the lounge area into a canteen and staffed it with people from the sales department who were willing to work.
Non-news employees stayed and volunteered to fill the sand bags to put in front of the building in case of flooding. In addition, their Chief Engineer was a ham radio operator and if they had lost their telephone lines, they could still have monitored emergency activities.

Station had a hurricane plan in place

Three years earlier, in July 1985, several news department members met and organized a hurricane preparation plan which proved very valuable. Reporter Steve Wright wrote a memo summarizing their ideas.
He wrote, "We need to shoot, write and edit packages on some basic hurricane stories. This will include packages on hurricane checklists, home preparation, evacuation routes, and riding out the storm. With these stories on file we'll be a step ahead and have time and manpower to devote to more timely coverage of any given storm, and our city's preparation for it."
Wright proposed promos to run during a hurricane watch.
He said, "Promos would be quick sound bites from the general public answering the question, 'What will you do to prepare for our next hurricane that you didn't prepare for our last one?'"

The Checklist
The group prepared a list of needed gear and arrangements which had to be made. Here are some of the members' suggestions:

Generator on stand-by. Need power for numerous operations.

Gasoline. Need to make arrangements with Winstead's Exxon to have two 50-gallon barrels of gasoline on reserve. Once electricity goes, gas pumps won't work.

Suburbans, Jeeps, and other "high-riding" vehicles on stand-by.

First Aid Kits. One kit should be kept in each news unit and kits should be kept at the station.

Ankle weights. To keep you from being blown over.

Manual typewriters. These would be a pick help if the electricity goes.

Hip boots. For wading through water and to protect from snakes.

Slickers.

Helicopter on stand-by.

Security guard at the station.

Hershey Hotel. Reserve room for good aerial B-roll of the bayfront and downtown area during the storm.

Telephone recording.
Recording with latest weather information. This would be for the convenience of the viewers and the news staff.

Doctor. A good idea to have a doctor in the building.

Advice to Camerapersons: Photographers should shoot conservatively. Battery power could be a problem. You can get just so many shots of palms blowing and waves crashing. Staff should keep eyes open for spectacular and unusual damage.

It proved to be a solid plan, one which gave KRIS a strong base for its coverage of these fierce end-of-summer storms.

Your plan must be ready and right

"To plan ahead is the key to the entire coverage," said Nancy Cope, the acting News Director at KTRK-TV, Houston.
News team members started watching Gilbert when it was still in the Caribbean.
Early on, they had two major plans.
First, if it came straight at Houston itself. How would they cover it in their own backyard? Taking care of their own equipment, facilities, and personnel so they could stay on the air would be imperative.

Secondly, they intended to be flexible and cover Gilbert wherever it went.
"Anywhere from Brownsville over to the Florida Keys and we would have covered it. It's something people here can identify with," she explained.
When they knew it was going to hit somewhere from Houston south, they sent three crews to Galveston, two to Corpus Christi, and three to Brownsville.
"We set them up --- hotel rooms, communications, edit packs, and ku- trucks. We literally blanketed the coast of Texas with a network of crews, so that wherever the storm came, we were ready," she explained.
"Early on as we were doing our planning, we let our audience know what we were doing --- particularly with promos showing our weathermen. We did as much as we could to let them know we were going to keep them informed," she said.

Rule One: Don't Endanger Yourself

In his newsroom meeting the night before Gilbert ripped apart Yucatan, KPRC-TV's News Director, Paul Paolicelli, told his people that as the first order of business, they should never endanger themselves.

"Their own protection was the most important thing. I didn't want anybody hurt!" he told us.
He told the newsgathering team members that if they made a mistake, they should err on the side of caution.
Secondly, he told them to take every precaution to protect the gear. He said, "Understand, you could have the world's greatest story and it wouldn't matter if the gear got wet and you couldn't get it on the air."
Later, even though their ku-truck was parked behind a secure building, the cement underneath it collapsed. The runoff and rain had eroded the soil. They had to get a tow truck to haul it out.
His third instruction: Get the stories as best they could using prudence. KPRC had crews stationed along the coast, moving them as needed.

Used Field Producers Heavily

Paolicelli put a field producer every place where there was more than one reporter.
"It's absolutely necessary, because if you're not communicating back with the mother ship then you don't know what the satellites are doing," he explained.
He used experienced people in this position. And, he was flexible --- he picked a sports producer to field Corpus Christi.
"He is used to quick editing and fast turnarounds after baseball and football games," Paolicelli said. It worked out well.

In a recent newsroom review of their coverage of a Dallas plane crash, they decided they'd never roll the ku-truck on a major story without a field producer.
"Communications are the name of the game, and a field producer really helps things," he stressed.
A reporter carrying a heavy live responsibility cannot be simultaneously gathering information, arranging interviews, and reviewing possible shots.

Balance the Workload

In nineteenth century Europe, Napoleon would try to keep a reserve of fresh troops held out of the battle. At the right moment, he'd throw them into the fight.
Paolicelli operated much the same way.
"We kept crews here in reserve. There was much consternation about that, because it was 'Use me!' 'Use me!' and we were saying, 'We will --- at the right time,'" he said.
As the hours pass, people do get tired, particularly in wind and water, often without regular food. And, hurricanes are unpredictable. Reserves were ready to roll in an instant towards some new angle which broke.

Franchise reporters were assigned within their basic areas of expertise.
The health reporter's responsibility was any health issues which were going to come up in the storm --- emergency aid, health supplies, blood.
The consumer reporter did the initial stories on how to protect your home, what things you need to buy. She'll eventually went with the relief supplies to Mexico to make sure they get to the right people. The business reporter covered what was going on in the business community, the station's relief fund drive and anything economic. When they weren't needed in those areas, they could report on the storms.
"It's hard telling reporters to just hold off --- to just wait this thing out until we know what's going to happen," he said.

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