Bridge Collapse Radio Coverage

[KMan]

What, no discussion of the radio coverage the night of the bridge collapse?

I work in the transportation industry and was just closing up the office when my phone started ringing about the bridge collapse.

I reached over to my GE SuperRadio on my office window and flipped KOMO on.

Art Sanders was tremendous, handling news trickling in, on scene callers, alternative travel routes. This guy was incredible. They would flip over to the KOMO4 coverage with Dan Lewis and Molly Shen to give their radio team a breather to gather information, then come back to radio when needed.

I guess by the time the news broke most of the PM drive news team had gone home. Yet KOMO scrambled evening editor Ryan Harris to the scene, got AM reporter Corwin Haeck out of bed to go the scene, got PM drive editor Charlie Harger to Harborview, and eventually dragged Rick Van Cise in from home to help co-anchor with Art.

Art had a live interview with a guy who claimed he was the last car across the bridge before collapse and told the story of the oversized load striking the bridge truss. This was truly breaking news; no other source had this information which was later corroborated.

I flipped over at one time to KIRO; their coverage wasn't that good, except for live actualities from Tony Minor who was commuting home... I don't even know who was anchoring for KIRO.

Hopefully someone at Sinclair took note of the top notch radio news operation they are buying; but I doubt it.

 

[Bongwater]

I caught a little bit of KBRC/KAPS "coverage", which was just one guy breaking in the canned music feeds with updates. I remember during the floods and other disasters in Skagit County in the '80s and '90s, KBRC would get it's entire airstaff out on the scene for reporting. All regular programming, including commercials were suspended for until all the who/where/what was in.

This attempt last night from KBRC/KAPS was pathetic and so piss poor for so-called "local" stations, they might as well have not reported anything at all. At least KOMO was paying SERIOUS attention.

 

[bossbill]

In all fairness, I make a couple of observations: 1) why do we call network programming "canned music feeds"? When a song is playing on the radio, how often is it "live"? What does "canned" mean? 2) Mt. Vernon is a tough market for AM radio. It is under the Seattle umbrella and the Bellingham umbrella. Staff size is tiny compared to a Seattle or even a Bellingham station.
Not only is the available revenue base too small to support a fully-staffed 24/7 local operation, resources don't make a dent compared to the Seattle news operations. 3) KBRC/KAPS are music stations. How many Seattle music stations changed format for continuous coverage? 4) How did the Bellingham news operation handle this? Saga owns all the Whatcom County stations, has a large staff and probably upwards of $8 million annual revenues.

KOMO is to be commended for their coverage. As a news operation this what they do, and they have the staff and resources to cover breaking news events throughout the region.

If it were my stations, the only thing I would have done differently - I might have called KOMO for permission to use some of their updates.

 

[bobdavcav]

I wonder if KOMO will get another Murrow for this? Absolutely outstanding coverage Thursday night. Even yesterday morning didn't seem as repetitious as the usual morning news is.

 

[LITTLEBOYBLUE]

I was much less enthralled with TV coverage on KOMO sister. Lewis wouldn't let go of collapse, inspections, "are bridges in the state safe", etc. --- even though word was already out at that point that witnesses had seen the oversize load strike. I get they are under pressure to "fill" ... but this has the same "credibility" issues that CNN has developed lately. Open mouth...yammer to public...then research ... then think.

 

[boiseengineer]

I kept hearing on the TV coverage that the alternate routes were "two-lane sub-standard bridges".
All they had to do was look @ Google Earth to see that nice new 4-lane bridge right next to I-5.
I forget who it was (4,5,or7) thats stream had only left channel and really low audio.

 

[Bongwater]

I kept hearing on the TV coverage that the alternate routes were "two-lane sub-standard bridges".
All they had to do was look @ Google Earth to see that nice new 4-lane bridge right next to I-5.
I forget who it was (4,5,or7) thats stream had only left channel and really low audio.

Only problem with that nice new bridge is it's super crowded now. Just bumper to bumper from the College Way exit to the George Hopper Rd. on-ramp.

I wonder if we'll be hearing Skagit County traffic reports on Seattle radio clear until whenever they get this thing replaced (or a Band-Aid fix....)

 

[LITTLEBOYBLUE]

It's hard to get any info about delay times (though our experience today was minimal delay going North @ 7a, South @ 3p). Was VERY surprised, though, that DOT is using 1520 at Burlington for driver announcements....then once you clear the area the frequency is "handed back" to KXA. Seems if nothing else...the local station COULD offer some traffic info for the community...when we turned them on it sounded like a local high school sports event of some kind.

 

[Bongwater]

It's hard to get any info about delay times (though our experience today was minimal delay going North @ 7a, South @ 3p). Was VERY surprised, though, that DOT is using 1520 at Burlington for driver announcements....then once you clear the area the frequency is "handed back" to KXA. Seems if nothing else...the local station COULD offer some traffic info for the community...when we turned them on it sounded like a local high school sports event of some kind.

That's the same frequency they used when they were building the replacement bridge on Riverside/Burlington Blvd. back in 2000. They must not have re-tuned the transmitter since. If I had any say with the DOT, I'd have bumped it down to 1500 kHz so not to interfere with KKXA. Maybe Andy (Skotdal) can do something about that.....