Issues

Managing: The Calm Before the Storm

Mark Willis

A hurricane is coming. Are you prepared?

When major storms hit your area, preparations you have already made can make the difference
between status as the go-to news leader that people will depend on and the after-thought news station, one click away from obscurity.

When Hurricane Ike roared ashore at Galveston Island on September 13, Texas TV and radio stations put on their game-gear and prepared to tackle one of the biggest news stories of 2008, and an integral part of their natural disaster coverage included using multiple platforms.

The public demands it. As with many storms, Ike left several areas in shambles and millions of
people without power. Battery-operated radios and car stereos become the prime source of news and information.

Texas broadcasters were in action long before the storm hit and many stations with full-time newsrooms began continuous coverage Thursday prior to the storm’s weekend landfall. Stations struggled to maintain operational live shots from Galveston as the storm hit but the toll was far worse on inland stations.

Skip Valet is the vice president of news at KPRC-TV in Houston, where coverage of the storm required an all-hands-on-deck approach. Valet says Frank Billingsley, chief meteorologist at KPRC, was certain Ike was going to be a problem for Galveston and Houston three days before it made landfall. “We had already been executing key parts of our station’s disaster plan, which secures the safety of our employees, our equipment and our building,” Valet says. “That disaster
plan is key. By being proactive, we were able to focus on our job which included, most� importantly, communicating information about the storm to our viewers.”

Valet adds that meeting with newsroom managers helped to find creative ways to distinguish their coverage. They came up with a three-point strategy:
1. They used a number of laptop computers combined with cell phone technology to broadcast live shots without the use of any “traditional” ENG or SNG equipment. This provided tremendous
coverage of the storm at Ike’s Galveston landfall and allowed them to do live shots of the clean-up efforts.

2. Valet says the station put together a telephone hotline to share storm information with callers. “We called it the ‘Neighbor 2 Neighbor’ hotline,” he says. “Before the storm we were able to give
evacuation routes, safety tips and the latest information about the hurricane. After the storm, the hotline became a clearinghouse for viewers with needs. For instance, a viewer without power
would call, and another caller was volunteering a generator. We would connect those people then cover their stories. This provided a very hopeful tone when times were tough.”

3. Finally, Valet says the station decided to utilize their strongest storm resource, their chief meteorologist Frank Billingsley. ”Frank went on a series of aerial and walking tours of the devastation from the storm. This included fl ying in our helicopter and talking to evacuated viewers as they saw their individual homes for the very fi rst time. We were the first station in the market to use these ideas. The other stations launched their variations following our coverage.”

Despite massive power outages, Houston TV newsrooms were able to post information on station websites and feed audio signals to local radio stations. At least one station fed its signal to stations in other Texas markets for use on those stations’ alternate digital channels. Texas TV stations had first done that during Hurricane Rita in 2005. As KHOU-TV news director Keith Connors told the Houston Chronicle, “At this point, we’re a public utility. We need to be there with consistent, credible information. We’re just a conduit, like a faucet. You should be able to turn us on and good information comes out.”

How would your station react leading up to a storm? Consider some of the issues Texas� broadcasters ran into with Ike:

—Areas of town, and city employees, became off-limits to reporters.

—Generator fuel supplies dipped.

—Buildings lost their roofs, or use of elevators and other facilities.

—Water and other obstacles (alligators!) kept engineers from fi xing transmitters and towers.
Now, when there is no threat to you or your station, is the time to plan for how your station can help your community through a natural disaster.—Mark Willis is RTNDA’s Texas state� coordinator and news director at Sirius Satellite Radio.