5.9 Earthquake Hits Washington, D.C. and East Coast, how's the TV coverage?

[crainbebo]

Learned not too long ago a 5.9 earthquake centered around Mineral, VA hit Washington, DC, NYC and was felt as far as Detroit. Not too much damage, that's good. Checked around the TV about 11:40 this morning...not good in Seattle

ABC (KOMO): Regular programming
NBC (KING): Ticker that says "Stay tuned to KING 5 News", otherwise regular
CBS (KIRO): Regular
Fox (KCPQ): Regular
Univision: Regular
Weather Channel: relaying MSNBC but with local weather bar/Hurricane Irene map on bottom, so cut off
NWCN (Northwest Cable News): relaying CNN but audio was cutting out...

Noon
KING/KIRO has news at noon, and they covered the story, but no more than ten min. later went on to more serious stories, like a shooting in Seattle : NWCN was relaying KING, and CBC (Canada) had some coverage but went on to Tripoli news after ten or so min.
CNN/MSNBC has full coverage, kudos to them as they are "NEWS" channels ;D

-crainbebo

 

[recto101]

San Francisco talked about the 5.5 Quake in Colorado. Update San Francisco has coverage of the 5.9 quake in DC. Well remember the 3.6 quake that was hyped all over the DC area last year I wonder if this is the same fault in DC that caused the 3.6 quake in 2010.

 

[FreddyE1977]

Thankfully nobody was seriously hurt, and only minor damage (the worst being some
broken spires at the National Cathedral). Can't imagine this will be a long-lasting news event.

 

[gregg75]

So much on TV here, you'd think Atlanta was the epicenter.

But we're also the ones who buy out all the bread and milk from the stores for
a 1/2 inch snowfall.

 

[johnnyu]

San Francisco talked about the 5.5 Quake in Colorado. Update San Francisco has coverage of the 5.9 quake in DC. Well remember the 3.6 quake that was hyped all over the DC area last year I wonder if this is the same fault in DC that caused the 3.6 quake in 2010. Hey, it's not my fault.

 

[Sammi Brie]

Thankfully nobody was seriously hurt, and only minor damage (the worst being some
broken spires at the National Cathedral). Can't imagine this will be a long-lasting news event.

The Ecuadorean embassy also suffered some major damage.

 

[Markxxx]

Interestingly enough, the news is reporting that cell phone service in DC was jammed to the point of being unusable for a few minutes. I guess this will increase, rightfully or not, the call for more bandwidth...And where will that come from

 

[PTBoardOp94]

I live in a part of the country which has an earthquake like this every 3-5 years.

Having said that, it seems to me that there was a massive overreaction to this earthquake in Virginia. Buildings were evacuated in Manhattan, and the "big 3" networks all broke into programming...

 

[Markxxx]

It's an over-reaction but not if you've never felt an earthquake before. I've lived through tornadoes, floods, I was even in Hurricane Andrew, but I think I'd freak if I felt an earthquake.

 

[recto101]

I live in a part of the country which has an earthquake like this every 3-5 years.

Having said that, it seems to me that there was a massive overreaction to this earthquake in Virginia. Buildings were evacuated in Manhattan, and the "big 3" networks all broke into programming...

But wait this quake in DC happened hours after the Colorado quake took place.

http://www.thirdage.com/news/colorado-quake-strongest-since-1967_08-23-2011

The headline shoud be 2 quakes hit the Rocky Mountains and the east coast of the country. Remember back in 2008 when the 5.8 quake took place in New Madrid and 3 months later Chino Hills, CA area got a quake at 5.8. This is nothing New but look The Colorado Quake and the DC quake got wider coverage nationally because other parts of the country are not used to 5.8 quakes the way Japan, Alaska, Washington State, Oregon and California Are used to quakes. But look againt the 5.9 DC quake was felt al over the eastern half of the USA while the 5.3 quake in Colorado was felt all over the Rocky Mountains. But if the 5.9 quake took place in Seattle it would be confined to the State of Wahington. just like a 5.9 in Hayward Fault in CA would be confined to CA.

 

[Matt]

Ten minutes after the quake, Danville VA independent station WMDV began continuous coverage, which ended at 9:00pm. They were joined at times by sister stations WGSR in Reidsville, NC and NewsChannel 18 in Martinsville, VA. At 4:00pm, WGSR took the lead in coverage, with cut-ins from Martinsville and Danville.

Bulletins on the aftershocks, the controlled concern in Washington DC and NYC and surveys of local damage were the news story of the day, and where information ran thin we opened the telephones for viewer stories on what they saw and felt.

For most of our viewers, this was the first earthquake they have experienced. It was our job to help them understand what had happened, and to assure them that while this event was serious it was not catastrophic. Our entire crew was involved in covering this, and we continue to make a forum for people to share their experience on our Facebook page at [url]http://www.facebook.com/starnewstv [/url].

You can watch replays of our coverage overnight at [url]http://www.wgsr47.tv [/url] or [/url] http://www.wmdv44.tv [/url].

Later . . . .

 

[landtuna]

After declaring the quake a "non-event" NBC Nightly News then spent 10 minutes on it. :

 

[recto101]

The crazy part is that the east coast Quake took place as it is approaching the 200th anniversary of the New Madrid Quake and the 125th anniversary of the South Carolina Quake. Does the East Coast Local Media talk about how overdue their Faults are. I know in The Bay Area whenever a quake hits other parts of the world or other parts of CA like Eureka, Landers , LA and the anniverary of Loma Prieta we talk about Hayward and San Andreas having an overdue fault system.

 

[Joe_Capitano]

Checked around the TV about 11:40 this morning...not good in Seattle...

Should have checked in around 11:15. The Big Three had Special Reports on right about that time.

 

[BRNout]

An overreaction if ever there was one! Yes, it was a good shaker and newsworthy for the novelty and for the minor damage caused here and there. But, as far as being real "news" - it was vastly overplayed.

Then again, this is yet another teachable moment on how something that would be limited to local/regional newscasts if it occurred in another time zone ends up being MAJOR BREAKING NEWS because it impacted DC and NY. The east coast bias was so thick that you needed coal mining equipment to cut through it!!!!!

In 2008, we had a similar tremor impact the midwest during the night. It was noted on the national newscasts and was (naturally) the big story in Chicago and other directly impacted markets. None of the national networks went wall-to-wall with it, nor should they have.

My God, the way that people back east reacted to this yesterday, you'd think that it was like Loma Prieta! I've been in many quakes that were 5.5-6.1 or so. Yes, they're scary while happening and give you a nice adrenaline rush. But when they're over, they're over. New York is about 350-400 miles from the epicenter - it couldn't possibly have been very strong there. Yet watching the people duck and run as if it was the end of the world was at once comical and frightening. It wasn't that bad people. Wussies!

Noteworthy, yes; worthy of top billing - all day long - NO. Irene is a much bigger threat, by the way.

 

[Silkie]

The east coast is not as fractured and faulted as along fault lines in the ring of fire areas. When a quake hits CA it stays right in the immediate area. On the east coast there is not that situation and circumstance. The distance from Richmond to NYC is more than about 350-400 miles, and the distance to RI is farther still, and the distance to Detroit is farther still.

Had nothing to do with east coast bias, but the fact that an area longer than the state of California was impacted in some way - and some places farther out had damage while other places closer in did not.

 

[FreddyE1977]

Apparently the Founding Father of TV News was not Edward R. Murrow.
It was Irwin Allen.

 

[recto101]

The east coast is not as fractured and faulted as along fault lines in the ring of fire areas. When a quake hits CA it stays right in the immediate area. On the east coast there is not that situation and circumstance. The distance from Richmond to NYC is more than about 350-400 miles, and the distance to RI is farther still, and the distance to Detroit is farther still.

Had nothing to do with east coast bias, but the fact that an area longer than the state of California was impacted in some way - and some places farther out had damage while other places closer in did not.

I remember back in 2008 there was a 5.8 quake in LA county but it was only felt in the southland.

 

[dhett]

After declaring the quake a "non-event" NBC Nightly News then spent 10 minutes on it. :

Well, it was either spend 10 minutes on that, or 10 minutes on the Kar_______ wedding. Sounds like the lesser of two evils to me.

 

[BRNout]

The east coast is not as fractured and faulted as along fault lines in the ring of fire areas. When a quake hits CA it stays right in the immediate area. On the east coast there is not that situation and circumstance. The distance from Richmond to NYC is more than about 350-400 miles, and the distance to RI is farther still, and the distance to Detroit is farther still.

Had nothing to do with east coast bias, but the fact that an area longer than the state of California was impacted in some way - and some places farther out had damage while other places closer in did not.

Oh please, it still wasn't that strong! Certainly not strong enough to warrant idiots running out of buildings (which you really shouldn't do) nor strong enough to justify the shutdowns of rail lines and airports.

I understand plate tectonics quite well, yet my example of a similarly sized Midwestern quake in '08 holds. It was 5.8 as well and centered near the Ohio River in SW Indiana (IIRC). Felt it myself in the Chicago 'burbs - probably about the same strength as those sissies in New York felt yesterday. It wasn't run wall to wall on the cable news nets. Did you see the video shot during a news conference in NY? A little shaking and the media ran out of the room like Chicken Little!

Californians are ridiculing East Coasters about this today. With good reason.......