Emergency Preparedness:
Making Sure Systems Don't Fail

VOLUME IX, NUMBER 44          NOVEMBER 6, 1989

Here is how some broadcasters prepared for the big earthquake in San Francisco, and what they learned when the power went off.

These lessons can be applied to newsgathering during disasters ranging from earthquakes to hurricanes and tornadoes to many other emergency situations.

"Everything in our building was engineered to keep us on the air in the event of an earthquake," said Peter Maroney, News Director of KPIX-TV, San Francisco.
The KPIX building was located near the Bay. It was an old warehouse that withstood the 1906 earthquake. Before the station moved into it in the early 1980s, it was reinforced for more earthquake protection.

KPIX lost power when the recent quake hit. However, the station's two backup generators kicked in immediately.
"We lost power, but we never went off the air.  We were able to get our hands around the story immediately! That was due to the incredible quality of our backup support from the Engineering Department and Building Maintenance," said Maroney.

Maroney said their systems never failed them throughout <> their coverage of the earthquake.
"Microwaves, station-to-transmitter links, the transmitter itself, all of our receive sites, the helicopter, the computers --- nothing ever went down!" he said.

"The biggest factor in responding to the emergency was that we were ready with our generators," said Steve Moreen, Director of Broadcast Operations and Engineering.
They had tested the generators regularly and the equipment was big enough to do the job well.

"If a generator does not come on line, you are dead in the water," added John Starelli, Building Manager for KPIX.
They had put together a manual with procedures to follow in the event of an emergency.

When the power went off, the first technical priority was the generators. KPIX had one generator that supported life safety: lighting and air conditioning. The other operated the television studio.
"What helped us the most was the actual training on the generators," Starelli said.
They had simulated what to do if the generator didn't come on line. They also had a good supply of backup parts for the generator and the transfer switches.
And, they trained engineers on what to do as power was restored.
"If you're not careful, you can knock out the whole building again with a power surge," Starelli warned.
"The homework we've done has paid off," he stressed.

Twice a year, the engineers simulated a power outage at the building.
"We literally pull the power coming into the building and simulate a power failure," said Moreen.
"It tests the emergency systems --- the emergency generators, emergency lighting, and all the other peripheral things.  It also tends to break equipment.  It makes things break which are weaker and unable to handle a power outage," he said.

A maintenance person was on duty for these drills with a checklist of things which had to be reset manually when the power was restored. And, equipment that broke during the drill was repaired.

Broadcast equipment that is weak may fail when it is turned back on.
"We 'exercise' the station twice a year to make sure our equipment does withstand the power outage and the turn-on," he explained. This was usually done late at night.

However, the Master Control equipment that was sensitive to power loss was operated on uninterruptable power supply.
"Basically, it is a battery-operated power system," Moreen said.
As the power line was traumatized when power was interrupted and turned back on, there were some pieces of equipment that were so sensitive, such as the transmitter remote control and the Master Control computer, you simply didn't want to put them through power interruptions.
"Those all operate on a power system which is immune to any kind of failure," he explained.

Moreen said they had been very aggressive in the previous three years in renewing all the equipment at the station.
Much of the equipment in the field was new and it was carefully maintained.
"If we have a problem we fix it," he stressed.
"It is so competitive in San Francisco, you can't afford to have things not working," he said.

How to handle the generators was just one part of a larger maintenance program for all life safety equipment at KPIX --- a program that was very successful.
"We simulate disasters --- such as a fire in the building," Starelli explained. The engineers responded to the "disaster."
For example, they sometimes set off a smoke detector or actually started a sprinkler going to simulate panels going off. This allowed them to make sure the appropriate alarm receiving company, such as the burglar alarm company or the fire department, was actually receiving the alarm.
"Our people have to locate the alarm and take the appropriate action," he said.
Starelli was in the Navy and implemented at the station the kind of life safety drills he participated in aboard ship.
"I've taken the training I got in the service and applied it to the building," he said.
Coincidentally, the week before the quake, Starelli staged a drill evacuating the whole building at the same time with the fire department on site. Although they wouldn't evacuate the building during an earthquake, had there been a fire after the quake, getting people out would have been imperative.
"We've tried to think of everything that could happen during an emergency and incorporate it in our plan before it does happen," said Starelli.

The managers developed an earthquake manual that all department heads were familiar with.
But, your perspective is different when you've experienced the disaster, too.
Here are suggestions Moreen had after living through this emergency.

1. Have an audio cartridge explaining the interuption ready to play on the air.
While KPIX was not technically off the air, the tape machine playing "Cosby" had stopped when the power went out. Although the generators kicked in right away, engineers didn't feel it was appropriate to keep playing "Cosby."
"We put an I.D. slide up, and within a few seconds went to the live camera in the newsroom as soon as they were ready," said Moreen. He planned to have an audio cart ready to play while the news talent was getting on set and the cameras were turned on.

2. Have as many systems automated as you can.
"In an earthquake, you are physically so shaken, you're scrambled. It is hard to think. You don't want to have emergency power generators you have to turn on. They need to be automatic. Generally, if it's a bad earthquake, it is very emotional and it shakes you to a point where it is hard to do business as normal," he explained.

3. Have a plan for how you would get on the air if your building were destroyed.
Could you quickly broadcast from your satellite earth station or your transmitter?

4. Have alternative forms of communications.
KPIX had a number of handi-talkies in the building and a two-way radio system.
"We have radios at all the important locations --- the transmitter, earth station, studio, and all the vans," Moreen said.

5. Have a backup studio-to-transmitter link.
"This is important in case an earthquake shakes your primary method of getting your signal to the transmitter," he explained.

6. Make sure your earth station has alternative power, too.
"We found there was a great need for the outside world to know what was going on," he said. Within a half-hour of the quake, CBS New York called and asked them to power up the earth station.

7. Have enough fuel for extended operations.
KPIX ran on emergency generator for 14 hours.
"That means we needed to have a standby generator which was capable of handling continuous operation for a long period of time. Most power outages I've experienced in the past have lasted an hour or two," he said.

Things can grow in diesel fuel. A clogged fuel filter can knock your generator out just when you need it the most. Once a year, the technicians filtered their fuel.
"That way we're assured it is always of adequate quality," he added.

9. Arrange for emergency cooling.
"When you're on emergency power, it's important to have cooling in the building," he said.
They had to break a window in one of the news areas because they needed to ventilate it.
"You can't run your whole station on emergency power, so you try to pick the things which are crucial," he explained.

10. Have adequate emergency lighting.
After this experience, they also installed emergency lighting in the bathrooms.
"It's not a problem if your power is out for only an hour or two. But, we found we were living by the emergency generator," said Moreen.

11. Have alternate ENG receive sites.
The station had six ENG sites they used exclusively and they shared several others.
They lost power at two sites. But because they had others, they were able to still offer elaborate live coverage.
"Our coverage was unaffected because we had redundancy of microwave receive sites," he said.

12. Consider routine overnight deployment of news vehicles.
Their photographers took their equipment and vehicles home with them at night.
"The reason we allow them to take the equipment home is because of the bridges. If there is an earthquake overnight and the Bay Bridge failed, we want to make sure we have a microwave in the East Bay. We had vans in all parts of the Bay Area," Moreen explained.

13. Make sure your clock in Master Control is securely fastened to the wall!
The clock fell down.
"It's not enough to hang them on the wall. In San Francisco, you've got to nail the clocks to the wall," he said.

Over at KRON-TV, they had more lessons learned --- items that are important as you prepare an emergency plan.

The Associate News Director for Special Projects, Ian Pearson, said TV station executives should prepare themselves for an emergency just like they would prepare their homes for a disaster --- have flashlights, batteries and emergency supplies on hand.

Here are specific ideas from the KRON earthquake experience:

1. Have dependable communications.
"When our phones were out and our lights were out, we were able to continue communications from floor to floor by using the two-ways," said Pearson.

2. Make sure you have the ability to pick up the broadcasts of other media inside your station.
"When we went off the air, we had to become like ordinary citizens trying to get information from other media," said Pearson. And, getting radio signals from other stations wasn't always easy inside a TV station.

3. Create a mini-newsroom for the biggest portion of the story.
For example, in the earthquake, traffic and transportation became the big story. The news managers created a control center in one of the offices just for traffic information.

4. Make sure you have the needed supplies.
Flashlights, batteries, pencils and paper.
"If you've gone to computers, have typewriters on hand with script paper," he urged.

5. Have telephone lines which are not part of your in-house phone system.
"If for some reason your phones are knocked out, you can get out on other lines," he said. Those lines should have long distance capability.

6. Have a manual fact and information retrieval system.
Make sure you can retrieve background information and phone numbers manually. A giant Rolodex is a must when the power goes out.

7. Have important phone numbers for people inside the station.
"If you were displaced from your office and had to operate out of Master Control, would you know the extensions of everyone in the building?" Pearson asked. He recommended a portable kit with key phone numbers, including emergency numbers, station extensions, and home phone numbers.
"It should have a pencil and paper, tool.  We're talking the lowest of low tech," he stressed.

8. Find alternatives to your computer graphics.
Because transportation was the big story, the staffers made a big 8-foot by 8-foot hardboard traffic map.  They stood a reporter in front of it and trained a camera on him.
"That became the most critical part of our newscast," Pearson stressed.
"Have the ability to put up a hardboard map," he urges. It was 1950s TV, but it worked!
"You can stand a knowledgable reporter in front of a map and have him point," he reminds us.
"As our electrical systems allowed, we added in voiceovers, computer maps, and telephone numbers people could call. But at the bottom of it all, was a fundamental system: a human being, with knowledge, who could point to a map.  We didn't have to rely on phone lines, or electrical power, or chromakey. This person could do the job," he said.

9. Have necessary hardboard maps ready.
Pearson recommended you make several maps showing critical things: highways, low lying areas, etc.
"To get your graphics department people just to drive into the station can be a challenge," he points out.
"Once you get them in, they may not have the manpower to go for four or five days straight," he added.

10. And, remember, spouses at home may not understand why their loved ones are leaving them during an emergency.
Besides working long hours under difficult conditions, your staffers may be getting a lot of arguments from home.
"We found there was a tremendous need to support our employees because many of them were having trouble on the homefront," said Pearson.
Spouses were not in the broadcast business, and after day three or four, they began asking why their partner couldn't stay home.

"Everyone in the community felt the earthquake and was equally scared. It was on everyone's mind.   The kids were clinging to the knees of the dads and moms as they were walking out the door. Management must realize that's happening and be supportive of their people," said Pearson.

See also: 

The Earthquake of '89: Local TV Provided Vital Details
Here's the story of how the San Francisco stations covered the turmoil.

Seattle Earthquake: TV Newsrooms Were Ready
This 2001 earthquake hit 6.8 on the Richter scale.  

The Great Blackout: Lessons From The Frontlines
An estimated 50 million people lost electricity in the massive 2003 blackout. In spite of incredibly difficult conditions, broadcasters jury-rigged equipment and devised creative solutions to stay on the air and serve their communities.

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