David's hurricane advice is eerily similar to his advice about corporate radio. "Hunker down and wait for the storm to blow over. Don't call us, we'll call you when it's time to come out and survey the wreckage."
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HD Radios sold thanks to the hurricane
- Thread starter nd2023
- Start date
SirRoxalot said:
As I said to Bob, it is plain to see that you have never been through a major hurricane. What I've described is the now well defined way of covering massive storms in areas that get them several times a year, and for whom Category 3 and Category 4's are not uncommon... and where radio stations routinely store spare tower sections, coax, and antenna bays in hardened buildings.
Wow, Rox. Isn't it instructive how we both get publicly informed of the extent and nature of our realm of experience from the Shaker Heights Hombre? (And all along I thought I was the world's leading authority on...what I happen to know. Live and learn!) :
Just to set the record straight: I happen to have lived through several hurricanes, of which I have direct knowledge. In 1972, shortly after graduation from Ithaca College, I led relief expeditions to the Southern Tier with convoys of volunteers where we helped our friends and former co-workers in Elmira recover from disastrous flooding from Agnes. I shoveled muck out of windows, drained walls filled with cholera-tainted water, winched vehicles out of mud and held the moms and daughters of my friends while they cried over the loss of every possession they had in this world. Many of them started their lives over with nothing but the clothes on their backs and mobile homes parked in front of their wrecked former homes.
I also led a press expedition including print, radio and TV to Corning to cover the post-Agnes disaster zone for Vice President Spiro Agnew's fact-finding visit. All this happened as I was evacuated from my own Rochester apartment, in a building approximately 500' from the Genesee River requiring me to live in a hotel for about a week. The River crested with the overflow ending approximately 15 feet from my front door, but I was luckily spared.
But, hey, what the hell do I know about hurricanes??
Just to set the record straight: I happen to have lived through several hurricanes, of which I have direct knowledge. In 1972, shortly after graduation from Ithaca College, I led relief expeditions to the Southern Tier with convoys of volunteers where we helped our friends and former co-workers in Elmira recover from disastrous flooding from Agnes. I shoveled muck out of windows, drained walls filled with cholera-tainted water, winched vehicles out of mud and held the moms and daughters of my friends while they cried over the loss of every possession they had in this world. Many of them started their lives over with nothing but the clothes on their backs and mobile homes parked in front of their wrecked former homes.
I also led a press expedition including print, radio and TV to Corning to cover the post-Agnes disaster zone for Vice President Spiro Agnew's fact-finding visit. All this happened as I was evacuated from my own Rochester apartment, in a building approximately 500' from the Genesee River requiring me to live in a hotel for about a week. The River crested with the overflow ending approximately 15 feet from my front door, but I was luckily spared.
But, hey, what the hell do I know about hurricanes??
Savage said:
I'm not from Shaker Heights. Get your facts straight. For the largest portion of my life, about 35 years, I lived or worked in San Juan, PR, and have worked with stations in the Dominican Republic and Miami... rather frequent destinations for hurricanes.
And you describe the aftermath of the rains that were what was left of storms that ceased to be hurricanes some distance from Elmira and Corning. As far as I know, no hurricane, defined as a minimum of 74 miles an hour winds, has never been near either of those locations.
Agnes ceased being a hurricane shortly after making landfall in the Florida panhandle, wandered over GA, and became a tropical storm, but not a hurricane, again of the Carolina coast, coming back on land well under hurricane strength at NYC shortly after combining with a low pressure front to produce enormous rains and flooding and an unfortunately high number of deaths.
Horrible storm. Not a hurricane within over 1000 miles of the named locations.
Not much; you don't even know when a rainstorm is not a hurricane.
Irene was a hurricane when it made landfall in Atlantic City and a tropical storm when it made landfall in Brooklyn. So yes, Irene was a hurricane when it hit NJ. Albeit no one in NJ saw true hurricane conditions and few areas saw true tropical storm conditions, it was still officially a hurricane in NJ. Sometimes, the worst part of a hurricane isn't the wind, it's the rain.
The weather radar system is redundant. If one site goes out, the neighboring sites can cover for it. Many TV stations also have their own radar. Even during Katrina there was radar imagery of the eye.
Do you really think it's better for a station to play music during a hurricane?
The weather radar system is redundant. If one site goes out, the neighboring sites can cover for it. Many TV stations also have their own radar. Even during Katrina there was radar imagery of the eye.
Do you really think it's better for a station to play music during a hurricane?
Nick said:
I am saying that while a strong hurricane's worst is passing over, there is little that can be added other than saying, "stay indoors."
Obviously, "staying indoors" requires a bit of detail, like making sure that you don't build up pressure differences, stay away from windows, stop drinking the water that comes from the tap unless told otherwise after the storm, don't open and close the refrigerator often to preserve foods, don't needlessly empty the toilet tank, put water in the bathtub for flushing, use food and water sparingly, etc. But that takes about as much time as reading this paragraph does.
One can not go outside unless they happen to be Geraldo and the winds are less than 100 MPH... preferably less than 80 MPH. Blowing objects are lethal projectiles, and falling wires, signs, trees and roofs are a major cause of death.
Almost all the deaths and most of the damage comes from water, in the form of floods, fast moving currents and erosion. I recall one Category 3 where nobody was killed by anything wind related, but quite a few lives were lost due to doing dumb things like watching the overflowing rivers from bridges... and being swept away.
I do have a personal opinion that some stations that have no experience in news coverage should, perhaps, play only music. Leave the coverage to stations with news departments or affiliations and contacts, as doing otherwise puts people in danger. If you want to be of service, ask a TV station permission to rebroadcast audio... many during power outages will not see TV, so there is a gain on both sides... the TV station gets positive exposure and the station does a service.
Digital TV is not kind to emergencies... battery portables do not hold a long charge, and coverage is bad for small sets. Radio and TV can work together here.
But, to answer your question, there is little to do in the 10 to 15 hours it takes a big hurricane to pass over. Even opening your door is dangerous.
I think I mentioned this, but an example of why you don't go out can be made with my neighbor's experience in a Category 3 (was a 4 before landfall) where, after the storm, we saw the gas station sign from about a km away... something like 20 feet by 12 feet in size... crashed on his roof. Fortunately, with reinforced concrete roofs, nobody inside was hurt or even felt the sign land. I had a 30 foot high tree just disappear...
I guess when so many groups have abandoned news completely, and have so few experienced local broadcasters because of syndication and voice-tracking, it's inevitable that there will be stations pumping out "favorites of yesterday and today" during a hurricane or other emergency. So much for serving the "public interest, convenience, and necessity".
I can hear David's promotion line now - "When power goes out, we'll bring you in the audio from XYZ-TV! Too bad you'll miss the pictures!" Feh. What an abdication of responsibility.
I can hear David's promotion line now - "When power goes out, we'll bring you in the audio from XYZ-TV! Too bad you'll miss the pictures!" Feh. What an abdication of responsibility.
SirRoxalot said:
When news was nearly a requirement on all stations, most stations did not have news departments. They had people who read news, and people who played songs. The guys who played songs were no more musicologists than the news readers were journalists.
In one market I was with, a top-3 station lifted news from the Enquirer and Globe and that was their news. Many Top 40's with 20-20 news and similar simply went by the motto of so many TV operations, "if it bleeds, it leads" and populated casts with crime and police blotter stuff.
I'd much rather that today's version of those stations stay away from pretending to cover hard news. Those stations took the position that their form of serving listeners was via entertainment and other content, not news. They can potentially endanger listeners' lives by doing what they don't do well.
But, if you think serving is necessarily equated to news, then no manner of logic and, more important, no manner of listener feedback to the contrary, will convince you that a soft AC with background announcing talent and very limited or no news is truly serving a large constituency that does not want anything else and which, coincidentally, knows what radio station, tv outlet or website to go to for news and information.
All I know is that Irene was still a tropical storm when it passed over New England, and as it has been said by participants in this conversation, the real threat from tropical systems is the water more than wind... so I dare say that while it wasn't a hurricane, it sure had more than enough precipitation to make it's impact... and coverage of the storm and what to do is not much different when the winds are 60mph than 75mph with the same amount of moisture.
Being in the storm down here in North Carolina, most radio stations did the right thing... simulcast TV stations that could not be seen by most because the power was out. Instead of pretending to do "news", they left it to the people who do news on a daily basis.
After the storm, most of these same stations were either off the air due to damage or on the air, either still with TV coverage or on the air telling people when it was safe to leave their homes and where they could find essential resources like water, food, emergency shelter and medical help. Within 3 days, most everything was back to normal, with occasional announcements on where shelters were open and how long they would be open.
I've lived thru 4 hurricanes and each one was quite different, even when the tracks were similar and the storms themselves "similar" as far as wind speeds etc. While there can be some things that remain the same in reporting on the storm, what the storm actually does forces coverage to be dynamic during all phases of the storm.
Being in the storm down here in North Carolina, most radio stations did the right thing... simulcast TV stations that could not be seen by most because the power was out. Instead of pretending to do "news", they left it to the people who do news on a daily basis.
After the storm, most of these same stations were either off the air due to damage or on the air, either still with TV coverage or on the air telling people when it was safe to leave their homes and where they could find essential resources like water, food, emergency shelter and medical help. Within 3 days, most everything was back to normal, with occasional announcements on where shelters were open and how long they would be open.
I've lived thru 4 hurricanes and each one was quite different, even when the tracks were similar and the storms themselves "similar" as far as wind speeds etc. While there can be some things that remain the same in reporting on the storm, what the storm actually does forces coverage to be dynamic during all phases of the storm.
wgliradio said:
The form of coverage changes dramatically as you move closer to a category 2, and even moreso with a 3/4. Under those conditions, even the areas over 150 miles from the eye are extremely dangerous and going outside is suicide due to the potential for being stabbed to death by a palm frond or a little branch.
At 50, 60, 70, even 80 MPH the issue is rain. Under higher sustained wind conditions, a whole new element is introduced by the dangerous winds and the fact that rain is often driven in a horizontal direction, meaning it will come into transmitter building air outlet elbows, penetrate under doors, come in between boarded or shuttered windows, even blow down roof air extractor vents and fans.
So the cautionary information during such a storm is very different.
During Hugo, a wind sensor at a military base a few miles from us was broken as it went off scale and jammed; it had a maximum read of 220 MPH, so whatever gust broke it exceeded that speed.
DavidEduardo said:
As I said, coverage is dynamic and of course the type of coverage changes with stronger storms where wind plays a bigger factor. However, I was pointing out how a tropical system can still be as dangerous at 55mph with the chance to dump 15 inches of rain as it is at 75-80mph with the same amount of rain.
The worst storm to hit New England in a century wasn't even a hurricane or even had a name when it hit.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Perfect_Storm
Higher speeds obviously add more factors, but when the storm was bearing down on Havelock NC as a possible Cat 3, who would have predicted the greatest damage from the "system" was going to be inland over New England. NYC was preparing for the worst, got by unscathed, upstate NY was probably ready for a rain event as was Vermont, and got the worst flooding in generations.
wgliradio said:
I agree with you here... and we don't often agree
The difference is that what really affected NY state recently as well as in the case Mr Savage refers to is a rainstorm of huge magnitude that released far more water than the ground and rivers could handle.
Whether caused by a front or pushed by a collapsed hurricane, this is more like the seemingly annual Red River floods in ND than a hurricane. And the media has to look at water and flooding as the story and the area to focus on; the lesser winds are more a danger because they push trees on power lines.
In a real hurricane, before it ceases to exist by dropping to storm status, you have a half day or more of leading rains, then a half day of destructive winds and blowing rain, and then another half day or more of further rain, coupled with flooding, loss of power, etc. On the human side, the greatest issue is the total powerlessness we have to do anything during 150 mph winds...
Whoa! Easy there, Captain "100,000 Hungarian Refugees in Cleveland" !! Back it down a little. Your animus is showing.
Who cares whether the winds were technically hurricane-force when they were over the New York landmass? They were the same storms...."Agnes" and "Irene." Because the winds were mostly under 65 mph, does that make the devastation any less real?
I can assure you that in Upstate New York, both contemporary news coverage and histories of Agnes refer to them as "hurricanes" and the "Hurricane Agnes floods" and "flooding from Hurricane Irene."
This is the HD Radio message board, and the thread is about HD Radios sold "thanks to the hurricane." Or, more precisely: HD Radios NOT sold due to the hurricane. Much in the same way we have HD Radios not sold because it's cloudy, cold, or sunny-and-hot.
Or for any other reason. (Not that the extremely non-robust nitwit system would ever hold up during a hurricane or any other major weather incident. Thank God for reliable analog radio broadcasting run by quality radio people with common sense.)
Back it down a little. Your animus is showing.Who cares whether the winds were technically hurricane-force when they were over the New York landmass? They were the same storms...."Agnes" and "Irene." Because the winds were mostly under 65 mph, does that make the devastation any less real?
I can assure you that in Upstate New York, both contemporary news coverage and histories of Agnes refer to them as "hurricanes" and the "Hurricane Agnes floods" and "flooding from Hurricane Irene."
This is the HD Radio message board, and the thread is about HD Radios sold "thanks to the hurricane." Or, more precisely: HD Radios NOT sold due to the hurricane. Much in the same way we have HD Radios not sold because it's cloudy, cold, or sunny-and-hot.
Or for any other reason. (Not that the extremely non-robust nitwit system would ever hold up during a hurricane or any other major weather incident. Thank God for reliable analog radio broadcasting run by quality radio people with common sense.)
Savage said:Whoa! Easy there, Captain "100,000 Hungarian Refugees in Cleveland" !!
No, the truth is showing. A) I never lived in that suburb of Cleveland and, as I've posted before, and per an interview with Mayor Celebrezze, Cleveland received "a hundred thousand refugees" at the time in reference.
Well, since the header of this thread and the general context is about hurricanes, when a hurricane ceases to be one, we are talking about a storm, not a hurricane. And the issue I have been called out on, namely what to do on the radio while a hurricane passes over, is both a moot point and irrelevant in such a case.
They were not hurricanes: you are obfuscating. When asked if you had been in a hurricane, you claimed to the affirmative. In fact, at the locations you mentioned, no hurricane came even close. And in the case of the '72 storm, the major cause of flooding was a storm front that merged with the decaying tropical storm... an incident twice removed from a real hurricane.
An FM transmitter with or without HD is not going to affect staying on the air during a hurricane. The fittings on the tower and antenna will have an effect, and the wind loading of the tower will. Most operators would turn all non essential equipment off, right down to lights, to preserve fuel... so in that sense, it's likely HD would be turned off. Most of us in Puerto Rico go to reduced power for fuel preservation and to reduce AC load, since AC systems are very vulnerable to hurricanes. Turning of the stereo generator proved useful, as it helped in fringe coverage areas, too.
The AMs, mostly in low lying areas, got turned off by Mother Nature and returned to the air via the efforts of FedEx.
DavidEduardo said:
David is it common to have major stations reinforce their transmitter buildings in hurricane-prone areas? Most of my market's major transmitter sites have brick transmitter sites even though they're all about 25 miles inland, but I've seen at least one station whose TX site is within eyesight of the Gulf and is the standard pre-fab deal that are common at cell phone sites. I wouldn't expect something like that last through a big sneeze much less a hurricane.
Zach said:
Significant AMs in the past, if near rivers or the ocean, might have bunker-like transmitter buildings, tower bases that held the insulator above flood or surge level, etc. But there is a point after which the costs are so great that you can't protect against everything.
In Puerto Rico, transmitter buildings everywhere will be reinforced concrete walls, roof and solid poured foundations. The floors will be fairly high off the ground, and power handling equipment and generators similarly raised. The same was usual with FMs even on 3000 foot mountains due to the higher than ground level winds during hurricanes.
However, in those worst case scenarios, you have bad things happen. I had an AM that had an exhaust vent from the transmitter with a fan to avoid a backflow and a downward facing elbow. Still, with near-200 MPH winds, rain was pushed into the duct, upwards and through the fan into the transmitter, which proceeded to die. The alternate main did not go on, but the lower powered 5 kw aux did, and we ran it at 1 kw... still, shows how you can't out-engineer that kind of storm.
WWL had an elevated site with the building several feet above flood level, same for the base insulator... and as we know, they survived Katrina while many other stations did not.
DavidEduardo said:Savage said:Whoa! Easy there, Captain "100,000 Hungarian Refugees in Cleveland" !!
No, the truth is showing. A) I never lived in that suburb of Cleveland and, as I've posted before, and per an interview with Mayor Celebrezze, Cleveland received "a hundred thousand refugees" at the time in reference.
I gotta tell you this forum has some of the funniest exchanges I've ever read, hahaha!
Never a dull moment here on the "HD Memorial Retrospective Discussion Board." I see now that in Northeast Pennsyltucky and the Binghamton-to-Central New York area a total of 100,000 people are out of their homes due to "Awfully Heavy Rainstorms Irene and Lee." I'm sure the families of 50+ dead are comforted by the knowledge their loved ones didn't die from ACTUAL hurricanes. :
Of course it's apparent to everyone that I evidently have no right to have an opinion on the relevancy of HD Radio in hurricanes since I personally have (allegedly) not experienced 65 mph winds (which is actually not true, but when you're wallowing in pedantic lectures about everything from PPM to meteorology, who cares about accurasy??)
Of course it's apparent to everyone that I evidently have no right to have an opinion on the relevancy of HD Radio in hurricanes since I personally have (allegedly) not experienced 65 mph winds (which is actually not true, but when you're wallowing in pedantic lectures about everything from PPM to meteorology, who cares about accurasy??)
Savage said:Of course it's apparent to everyone that I evidently have no right to have an opinion on the relevancy of HD Radio in hurricanes since I personally have (allegedly) not experienced 65 mph winds (which is actually not true, but when you're wallowing in pedantic lectures about everything from PPM to meteorology, who cares about accurasy??)
When you don't know the difference between a hurricane and a storm, and then when you don't even know the point at which a hurricane stops being a hurricane (below 74 MPH sustained), It's hard to take anything you say as factual.
And when you don't understand the difference between heavy rains, during which you can go out of your home or workplace and even engage in emergency actions, and a hurricane, during which you must stay indoors and can essentially do nothing, I doubt your analytical skills.
It seems the obvious conclusion that, while you appear to have done a dedicated job during floods, you don't make the distinction between that horror and the even greater one of even worse winds and driving rains during the passage of a hurricane itself (and not its post-disintegration aftermath).
None of this has to do with HD, which has no effect on hurricane coverage at all.
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