| "Floyd dumped an extraordinary amount of rain in our
area. We experienced historical floods --- floods that exceeded the 500-year flood
plain," said Neal Fox, News Director of WITN-TV, Washington, NC. "We cover 15
counties, and we had 14 inches of rain. The rain came first, and then the winds came.
I had never seen flash floods before. But we saw cars stranded, and complete
cities underwater," said Robert Salat, President and General Manager at WNCT-TV,
Greenville.
The rainfall totals from Floyd were extremely high in the regions it hit the hardest.
It was made worse by the already saturated ground water levels from previous storms,
including Dennis. It produced an inland flood disaster. There were more than 50
deaths in the United States, most of them in North Carolina. These were mostly due to
drowning from fresh water floods.
Rainfall totals were as high as 15 to 20 inches over portions of eastern north Carolina
and Virginia.
The estimates for North Carolina: 51 deaths; 7000 homes destroyed; 17,000 homes
uninhabitable; 56,000 homes damaged, over 500,000 customers without power out at some
point. There was several agricultural damage, with the loss of crops and livestock.
The WNCT engineers had switched to a generator as the hurricane was approaching, which
enabled them to stay on the air through the storm and in its aftermath.
The station simulcast its coverage on radio so people who only had portable radios could
receive the emergency information.
"We did that last year too, with Hurricane Bonnie, so these were partnerships we
already had established," Salat explained.
During the hurricane, part of the roof blew off of WNCT.
The administrative offices on the second floor sustained some water damage, but the
station stayed on the air with continuous coverage.
Big storm was only the start of the weather emergency
For days, news operations presented extended on air coverage of the aftermath.
Many roads were impassable. Power was out. Life was disrupted. Public health was
endangered.
After a disaster like this viewers desperately needed basic information -- phone
numbers, where to go for assistance, shelter information. People called the stations
trying to find individuals who were missing and asking which agencies could help with
various problems.
The managers at WNCT hired two helicopters to provide aerials of the flooding.
"I went up in the chopper to take a look at the area. We flew over one town and
saw caskets floating! We had to airlift some of our crews to areas that were
inaccessible. Helicopters flew in reporters and photographers and people with boats met
them and took them around," said Salat.
Although WITN's two offices --- one in Washington and the other in Greenville --- were
not negatively impacted by the storm, many employees were. Homes and cars were ruined.
Travel was often slow, even impossible.
A few days after Floyd moved through, Fox told us, "We are working with a bare
minimum staff right now. We're in a state of emergency here, and we're trying to provide
the emergency information our viewers need --- information like the flood levels, when
rivers are supposed to crest, and where the flooding is occurring."
Citizens, officials and reporters with cell phones provided first hand reports.
"At some points we have become radio on TV. Obviously, television is a medium of
pictures, but we are resorting to phoners with anyone who can give us information, "
Fox said.
Normal life was disrupted for days afterward
In Greenville, the city went dark when five transformers that served the area flooded.
"They sandbagged the power plant and the water plant, but they finally gave way. The
power was off for almost 24 hours. The water went off about two days later," said
Salat.
The lack of water was an ongoing problem for the entire area, as well as the TV
station.
"When you think about everything you use water for, from brushing your teeth to
taking a shower to flushing a toilet, you can see what a problem it was," Salat said.
Managers had to send out search teams to locate bottled water and portable toilets.
They also had to find more diesel fuel to power the station's generator. WNCT ran on
generator power for over a week.
Salat said, "Getting the fuel to the generator was a major challenge, because the
area where the tower is located was one of the hardest hit. It is normally about a
20-minute drive, but it took about two and-a-half hours to get a diesel truck there."
Finding food was difficult, too.
"The shelves were picked clean before the hurricane," said Salat. After the
storm, delivery trucks had difficulty getting through.
"People brought things to us at the station. They fed our staff for basically four or
five days. As much as we helped the community, they helped us to get through this as
well," he added.
Getting live trucks into the locations hardest hit was difficult.
"We have been moving our trucks around and powering up and providing stories as soon
as we get them, then powering down and moving somewhere else. It is a continuous
process," said Fox.
President toured the stricken areas
President Clinton visited the area to inspect the damage.
"Covering any presidential visit has its demands. We had to map out what normally
would have been a 35- minute drive from one city to the next. Because we didn't know the
conditions of the roads, we had to plan for a two- to three-hour detour just to be sure we
could get our truck there," Fox said.
The drive only ended up taking about an hour, but they had to plan for the worst case
scenario.
WNCT's morning anchor, Elizabeth Wilder, was stationed at the airport when President
Clinton flew in to tour the devastated area.
The president was with Governor Jim Hunt and the Secretary of Health and Public Safety,
Richard Moore.
General Manager Salat was in the control room, watching the feed come in and realized
the president was walking over to Wilder.
"We had all been working 12- to 15-hour shifts, and there had been a lot of peaks and
valleys in covering this story. It was a very exciting moment for us when he went over to
talk to her," said Salat.
"The president walked over with the Governor. He said he understood we had been on
the air for three days straight, and asked if she had had any rest. She is pregnant and
due in December. She got the interview with the president, and then Secretary Moore said
we had been wonderful partners with them throughout the whole ordeal. Live on television
he said, 'You have saved lives,"' he said.
WNCT had a staff of about 70 people. Engineers, sales reps, secretaries and managers
worked together to help keep the flood coverage going.
"We could not have done this without the help of our sister stations," he added.
Other Media General stations sent crews and/or equipment to help out.
"At first, we just needed to get as many people out in the field as possible. But it
was difficult to get the extra people in, because after the storm, Greenville was
basically an island. The roads were flooded, and you couldn't get anywhere. Finally, the
road to Raleigh opened up, but there were still a lot of detours," he added. WNCT
offered staffers free tetanus shots for those who had to wade through contaminated water
in the course of the news coverage.
The station also organized a fund-raiser early on, collecting money, food and
clothing for storm victims.
"We raised more than $100,000 in cash, and filled six semi-trailers of food and
merchandise," said Salat.
Virginia: Having a plan is key to covering and surviving
After ravaging North Carolina, Floyd moved up the coast, and so did the flooding.
"The flooding was so intense that it cut off all the major evacuation routes for
Hampton Roads," said Cindy Willett Sherwood, News Director, WVEC-TV, Norfolk.
Interstate 64, a main evacuation route, shut down for several days. It happened so
quickly, that some people were not able to get out. The southern routes were shut down,
too.
"It is something city officials are going to have to address. At one point during the
storm, the rain was coming down at a rate of one inch per hour. If it had continued that
way, the entire area would have been swamped, and no one would have been able to
evacuate," she said.
"It was a very scary situation, and it is something that hasn't happened here
before," she added.
Planning was key to being able to react quickly.
"During the storm we had two fixed microwave links, one at Virginia Beach and one in
Hampton. Those were put up in case we weren't able to transmit with our microwave trucks,
in case the winds were too strong or we couldn't get through because of flooding,"
she explained. Sherwood said the news managers made sure crews were geographically and
strategically placed, and that they wouldn't work more than 12-hour shifts. It was
scheduled so people worked 12 on and had 12 off.
"With this coming on the heels of Dennis, we had some very tired people. We had to
make sure we staggered shifts enough that we wouldn't burn them out," she
added.
Managers, too, worked staggered shifts for days.
"We wanted someone in house to make crucial decisions, such as whether we had to do
special coverage or whether or not to place crews in a certain location, we wanted someone
here to answer those questions," said Sherwood.
That included the weekends as well. The News Director, Assistant Director, Executive
Producer and the News Operations Manager shared the duty.
"One thing that was a lesson for us was that Floyd didn't turn out as
expected," said Sherwood.
Usually, the Outer Banks gets pounded. On this one, the Outer Banks wasn't much of a
factor. Instead, eastern North Carolina and the outlying areas of the Norfolk market were
affected.
Sherwood said news managers must be prepared to be flexible when you learn where the
worst damage is.
However, that is sometimes easier said than done when you are in extended coverage.
"When you are doing hour after hour, to a certain extent, you need live shots to go
to, and you need a lot of them. You are locked down with the crews where they are, and it
can be hard to move," she warned.
For other news managers, Sherwood suggested you make sure your plan includes a
provision for how you are going to shift your resources when the storm is over and the
picture becomes clear.
It was a real problem in this case, because moving crews was difficult with the extensive
flooding.
"The magnitude of the flooding surprised everyone. There was so much rain that came
on top of all the rain from Dennis that it made for an unusual set of circumstances,"
she said.
"With weather coverage, there are always going to be surprises. You are never
going to be able to predict exactly what will happen and exactly what the impact will
be," she added.
"But if you are finding out about it as it is happening, it can be very difficult to
move crews and get in the position you need to be in," she said.
Norfolk and Virginia Beach, the two biggest cities in the market, were not too badly
affected by the storm.
"It was in pockets where the situation was just terrible. We needed information to
come in. People called us, e-mailed us, and our crews were out finding it themselves. Once
we found the areas most affected we had to get into position to cover those," she
said.
Having been through two big ones, Sherwood said that leading up to it, news managers
need to prepare their staffs and avoid burning out, because they will need their energy to
cover the aftermath.
"With a hurricane, you often don't know exactly when it will hit. It may slow
down, and you could find yourself going through day after day of preliminary coverage,
with many long days," she said.
If the hurricane is a bad one, you will have day after day of major coverage where
everybody must work.
"After doing 10 hours of extended coverage, you still have newscasts. And, you'll
be doing it the next day, and the next and next as well. You can't let up once the initial
event is over. That's when you are showing the effects on people who are devastated by
it," she added.
Sherwood said all the stations in the market did an excellent job of reporting
closings.
"We all ran 24 hours of closings. It is a vital public service and you must make sure
the system is in place, and you can get them on the air almost instantly," she
stresses.
Crew safety was a critical consideration.
WVEC had a situation with Hurricane Dennis with a crew that narrowly escaped trouble on
the Outer Banks.
"That experience made me more cautious for covering Hurricane Floyd. Even though one
crew was pushing to be sent to a certain location, the information I had from our
meteorologists was that it could be potentially a very hazardous situation. We decided
they could not go where they wanted to, that we were not going to take that kind of risk
with our people," she said.
"To a certain extent, we try to leave it up to crews to make their best judgment
as to their safety, but sometimes these storms are moving so fast they can't judge it on
their own." said Sherwood. |
