LESSON LEARNED, NO MORE EMERGENCY SERVICE DURING EMERGENCIES

[Leebo65]

Just had a severe storm move thru San Antonio with power outages and the supposed NEWS radio stations provide absolutely no emergency bulletins Nationally syndicated programs babbling and no local news about power outages and other pertinent updates. Community radio is indeed dead.

 

[daypart]

I noticed some of that, too. Now that there's no analog TV, a TV-band radio that's more than a couple of years old won't get you anything useful if you're unlucky enough to be one of the 119,000 homes in San Antonio without power tonight.

Fortunately, most severe storms seem to hit San Antonio during the daylight hours when stations are more fully staffed. KTSA has been known to cover up Dave Ramsey when weather conditions warrant in the afternoon.

 

[1st of 5]

Don't depend on our "local" media to offer anything useful during a crisis event, unless it involves some celebrity airhead's transgendered, HIV positive, undocumented future liberal, recovering substance abuse/sex offender pet slug. Get yourself a good battery operated weather radio so you can hear the weather alerts and info directly from NOAA. Universal Radio has the real ones, not 'the crap shack'. It may save your life and/or property some day.

 

[fredcantu]

Universal Radio has the real ones, not 'the crap shack'. It may save your life and/or property some day.

They're all good. Get one with the alert feature and your radio will go off the instant a warning is issued. Just don't sit in our on nightstand. It's plenty loud.

 

[Tom Wells]

Universal Radio has the real ones, not 'the crap shack'. It may save your life and/or property some day.

They're all good. Get one with the alert feature and your radio will go off the instant a warning is issued. Just don't sit in our on nightstand. It's plenty loud.

Yes, over and over again for the same alert. Drove my dad nutty. Now if each alert had a ID tag and you had acknowledged that particular alert, and the radio would ignore the same alert the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc time it runs, that would make it much more useful by eliminating
the annoyance factor. Multiple middle-of-the-night alerts just make people turn 'em off altogether.

 

[jras20]

Up in Austin KVET did break in with a weather alert and did the computer voice saying thunderstorm storm warnings. But that was it.

 

[RatchetUp]

Just had a severe storm move thru San Antonio with power outages and the supposed NEWS radio stations provide absolutely no emergency bulletins Nationally syndicated programs babbling and no local news about power outages and other pertinent updates. Community radio is indeed dead.

Yeah, it'd be nice if they had the people to go live with play by play coverage of the storm but WOAI had updates during the storm. I know that because BEFORE the storm I happened to check their web site and it had the official weatherstatement and live radar links on the home page. So someone must have been thionking over there. It also mentioned they would have updates from Weather Channel. So when the big wind began to blow I turned them in and there was the ubiquitous Sally Russell from Weather Channel with updates in and out of reg programming. Sally is like an institution at OAI - going back to the Gorilla days. KTSA? Don't know. But Leebo, you prove a point that I always used to tell my news people - if someone tunes in expecting you to be talkng about something, and you aren't, to them you NEVER did.

 

[intx]

They could always partner with the TV stations and air the weather cut-ins they broadcast. Majic 95.5 in Austin does that with KXAN, the local NBC station.

 

[Leebo65]

I was looking for info on the Why, What, Where, When, about the damage from the storm. My power was out. Tell me WHY it happened and When it is coming back on. Many people were affected. Thousands were without power. Businesses suffered much damage. Debris was blown of roofs of commercial buildings and turned into flying missiles. Turn the damn syndicated show off and get me info from CPS, THE POLICE AND FIRE DEPT.
Epic Fail KTSA an WOAI. Turn in your license for not serving the public.

 

[fredcantu]

Epic Fail KTSA an WOAI. Turn in your license for not serving the public.[/b][/color]

Why not hold all the stations to blame? Didn't they continue with their music formats during the storm much like Nero fiddled while Rome burned They are all equal in the eyes of the FCC.

 

[1st of 5]

In all fairness, there were a few local TV stations that went to live coverage. KSAT was first, with Steve Brown providing the timeline of the leading edge of the storm, which saved my lawn furniture and Weber from being airlifted into the next county. I don't know about the other TV stations, because their weather readers wouldn't know a T storm unless it slapped them in the face. Once the storm front blew in our DTV reception became spotty, so I turned on the weather radio. What about all of those people who lost power when the storm blew in? Are there any battery or hand crank powered portable DTVs? I guess they learned of the high winds and hail when they were hit by them. Those annoying and repetitive alerts told when and where and which direction he hail was moving to. Go Digital. Back to the stoneage.

 

[Leebo65]

Is there anyone on this forum that works in the Radio Business that can explain the lack of emergency coverage for the storm and its aftermath. You're sitting in the dark listening to the radio and it's business as usual. You hear sirens all over the place so you know a lot of emergency response is going on but the radio stations are oblivious.