Evolution takes many forms

This is a picture from the The Casual Historian Blog

As a youngster though the 1960’s, hurricanes seemed both exciting and frightening. My mother, a very Christian woman, would evacuate to the basement of our church. I suppose she thought that if it was our time to go, then we would all go together at the First Assembly of God in Millville. By the light of old kerosene lanterns and battery powered radios, the adults would trade stories and try to make it an adventure while we hunkered down in the church basement. I always think about these times when I hear the old church song, Keep Me Safe ‘till the Storm Passes By.

“In the dark of the midnight,
Have I oft hid my face;
While the storm howls above me,
And there’s no hiding place;
‘Mid the crash of the thunder,
Precious Lord, hear my cry;
“Keep me safe ‘til the storm passes by.”

My Dad, like many other Millville fathers, worked at the paper mill and it rarely closed due to hurricanes. So, many of the women and children would seek safety and shelter at church.

My curiosity would always get the best of me. I could hardly wait to get old enough to be outside where I could see what everyone seemed to fear the most. Little did I know that one day I would be in a position to see first hand the ugly side of a hurricane.

The images from Hurricane Camille in August, 1969, began to reshape my thinking; followed by Hurricane Eloise in September, 1975. Eloise’s fury hit the west end of the beach and spawned deadly tornados through our area. I was a student news director at WKGC radio at Gulf Coast Jr. College and was supposed to be on the air the morning Eloise hit. When I arrived at the studios, I was shocked to see that a tornado had ripped down our small tower and twisted the rigid metal into a shapeless heap of scrap. Now, for the first time, it felt personal. Months later, I would begin a career in television news and come face to face with many other hurricanes.

Hurricane Frederick hit the Alabama coast in 1979. It was devastating to the residents of downtown Mobile. But most of the early 1980’s was quite except for an occasional tropical storm or tropical depression. However, in 1985, it all changed.

Hurricane Elena passed by Panama City twice; once on her way to Apalachee Bay, where she floundered for several hours then did a complete turn around and came back by Panama City before making final landfall on the Mississippi coast.

A few weeks later, in mid-November, Hurricane Kate landed near Mexico Beach. Kate baffled everyone by her late appearance when everyone was getting ready for Thanksgiving. Such a late season storm is very rare. The damage along the coast was minimal, but Tallahassee and Apalachicola received substantial damage.

All television stations depend heavily on the National Weather Service to provide detailed information of approaching storms. And even though WMBB has always had its own radar, in 1985 we still depended on the government to make the forecasts then we would simply paste the information to a metal board using magnetic symbols and magic markers. My great friend and co-worker, Bob Petermann was in charge of weather during Hurricane Kate. I will never forget watching him move his magnetic symbols after each advisory and thinking, there must be a better way.

There was…

WMBB engineers, Frank Atkinson and Mike Zelinski, figured out how to run a cable from First Baptist Church on Harrison Avenue across Grace, Jenks, Mercer, and Oak avenues and into the back of the EOC office on Mulberry. Panama Glass Company even opened their doors to allow us to run the cable through the middle of their business since it was a shorter route to EOC. All this work was done during Kate’s tropical storm force winds and in a driving rain. The result, however, was live pictures sent via cable to the church then micro-waved to our studio on the lower end of Harrison Ave. (The micro-wave was previously installed to bring live Sunday morning worship services to the TV station.)

This live-link enabled emergency management officials, for the first time ever, to deliver live briefings as the storm approached. Channel 7 was forced to drive the taped briefings all the way to the beach to rebroadcast them. Today, every broadcaster in the market has the capability to provide live coverage from the EOC. but at the time it was quite a technological accomplishment.

This single event did more to boost morale and encourage our staff than anything we had done in years. Even during the worst of the Hurricane Kate when we lost all power and had only enough electricity to power one camera, one microphone, and one light, we continued to broadcast uninterrupted.

Providing extensive news coverage of hurricanes is one of the greatest challenges facing all television stations along the Gulf Coast. Critical, life saving information is crucial to our viewers and we are committed to making sure that we relay this information as quickly and as accurately as possible.

The management at WMBB has spent countless hours rehearsing and planning for a major disaster. Even though we have one of the most experienced storm coverage teams along the Gulf Coast, the anxiety level is at an all time high. Hurricane Katrina was a stark reminder of what a deadly Atlantic and Gulf hurricane can bring. Hurricane Ivan taught us that even lower rated hurricanes can spin deadly tornadoes and cause major destruction to our homes and property.

Today, modern technology offers numerous options for covering such events. Even with detailed planning, we can’t determine what a hurricane might bring. Prior to Hurricane Dennis, our parent company invested thousands of dollars to provide the station with the latest weather forecasting tools available. The Titan radar was purchased and offers exclusive three dimensional images of approaching storms. This technology gives forecasters great insight into a storm’s characteristics and helps to evaluate potential threats to specific neighborhoods.

A new natural gas powered generator has been added with the capability of powering the entire station, including the reporter work stations and air conditioning. We have truly come a long way through the years.

Viewer expectations have also changed. During Hurricane Dennis on July 10, 2005, WMBB and its sister station, WKRG in Mobile, Alabama, provided live streaming web coverage of the hurricane as it approached and made landfall near Pensacola. This was new technology and to our knowledge it was the first time wall to wall storm coverage had been provided over the web by any local television station.

Thousands of viewers around the world logged on to watch the coverage. At one point, more that sixty thousand were watching as the storm approached the North West Florida coast. Viewers included soldiers in Iraq, block parties in London, and some emails even came in from Australia. Most, however, were local residents who had evacuated and were desperate for information about their homes and property. The live streaming coverage gave them what they wanted. For more than 36 hours, WMBB employees worked to provide information to its local and international audience.

I sincerely hope that it will be a quite hurricane season. Like most, I am praying that no one will be forced from their homes, sustain injuries, or lose property as a result of a hurricane. I no longer have the curiosity of the child longing to see the winds and hear the thunder. These days I wish only to lay my head in my mothers lap and feel safe until the storm passes by.

Comments (1)

Posted on Aug 13, 2007 - 01:49 PM by Larche Hardy

Page 1 of 1 pages

About Me

The life of any News Director is stressful most days... so, when the weekend rolls around I find myself on the back roads of our bountiful and beautiful part of the state looking for bluegrass music, interesting things to do, and, of course, fried chicken. I will try to share some of these "finds" with you. There are a thousand stories left to be told or simply remembered. Don't expect to find them all here; maybe just a little stroll down memory lane or maybe a little skewed insight into topical issues.
Larche Hardy,
News Director

Evolution takes many forms

About Me

All My Entries:

Other News13 Blogs:

ABC/News13 Headlines:

Monthly Archives