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Severe Weather Coverage

M

MontyRowell

I was wondering if there are any stories that the group would like to pass along from the killer tornado of last week.

I kind of got caught in a situation that affected me personally. Many of you know that I am from Conway County, northeast of Morrilton. I was here at the station at UCA when the warning for Conway County was issued and when I discovered that the track of the storm was headed for my parents farm, it kind of un-nerved me for a minute.

Called the farm and told my parents to take cover because it was on the way. My parents saw the tornado on the ground about 100 yards south and west of our house as it came up over the levy of a watershed lake. The best thing that came out of this was that they were not hurt. Lots of property damage, to say the least.

I didn't hear from them for about 30-to-45 minutes after the storm had passed. That amount of time seemed like a week.
 
There was no more helpless feeling than knowing your wife and daughter are in Russellville, and you see those storms moving across Yell County toward the river. I know I heard Johnny Story through the static coming in on KCAB doing his always wonderful job on the storm coverage. I also heard Sid King on KGFL doing outstanding coverage.

Radio really stepped up in the aftermath of the storms.
 
Storm and the aftermath coverage are what sets local radio (and TV) apart. Up north the tornado missed KFFB's transmitter site by less than a mile and we spent nearly 6 days running on a rental generator, but the station was on the air after a few hours of initially being off and the information was being provided to those who needed it. On the TV front, during the storms I must give props to KARK as they were doing wall to wall coverage for nearly 6 hours that I saw and not just doing cut-ins like KTHV and KLRT.

Accurate and timely information in times of emergency can make all the difference in the world. It's nice that some broadcasters still take that idea seriously. I remember a storm system with tornado warnings going through the Conway area and up north on a Sunday night a couple of years ago and the only radio stations that had any information were the River Valley radio stations, KHPQ and KFFB. The Little Rock stations were playing countdown shows and voice-tracked programming while KARN managed to give an update about twice an hour. It was frustrating to say the least, not to mention nerve wracking being stuck out driving in the storms but I did have information where it was headed. But to sympathize with Mogul, at least my family was with me and I wasn't having to helplessly watch the storm plow toward them.
 
Local radio isn't the same anymore and one thing that sets local radio apart from the others is the severe weather coverage. I remember when the old KPIK was on the air and Beebe was hit by a tornado in 1999. KPIK was the only station around that was constantly giving severe weather coverage, even to the point when they were telling people from outside of town not to try and go into Beebe because of all the damage. Even though my area of town was spared, it was nice to know what was going on as far as damage and which area was hardest hit. I know those guys were on the air for at least 14 hours straight devoting their time to coverage of the storms.
 
TVJunkie12 said:
can make all the difference in the world. It's nice that some broadcasters still take that idea seriously. I remember a storm system with tornado warnings going through the Conway area and up north on a Sunday night a couple of years ago and the only radio stations that had any information were the River Valley radio stations, KHPQ and KFFB.
Click to expand...

Media Mogul said:
I know I heard Johnny Story through the static coming in on KCAB doing his always wonderful job on the storm coverage.
Click to expand...

On behalf of River Valley Radio, thanks for the compliments. In the instance of severe weather, we flip a switch and do a six-station simulcast (KCJC/KWKK/KVLD/KCAB/KVOM-FM/KVOM-AM) - unless we elect to do as we did last week and do separate broadcasts for Russellville and Morrilton, tailoring them to be a little more specific to the communities we serve. I was home with the flu and cable was out from the storm - so I got to hear radio storm coverage from the vantage point of the listener than the broadcaster. I, of course, wished that I was helping in some way (My wife doesn't understand why. Non-radio people!). But Johnny, Aaron Thomas, Ken Eubanks, Jason Camden, Jarrett Jackson and Eric Tyler did a bang-up job for us and it was a proud moment for our stations.

As for TV - like I said, cable was out. I have DSL at home, so I was able to get 7 and 11 online and after we were clear of the danger I hooked up an antenna to pick up over-the-air signals. All three seemed to stay with it all night and did a good job in my estimation.
 
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