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Suffolk Tornado Coverage

cmrivdog

cmrivdog

I just heard about the tornado(s) touching down in Driver and near downtown Suffolk (near the hospital). Being a former resident of the area (and worked in Norfolk and Suffolk nearly 20 years ago) I was curious about the coverage.

At 6:30 PM both WTAR and WNIS were in syndicated programing. Has Norfolk area radio news gotten this bad? WTAR would have been in wall to wall coverage, with WNIS struggling to keep up. Heck, even Metro Traffic would have had more information than what I heard Jeff Mauro give on WNIS (We think Rt. 58 is still closed, but we don't know)

I would love to move back to the area, but if this is the best one of the largest markets has to offer for news...forgettaboutit.
 
After the news crossed the AP wire, I checked the Richmond and Norfolk TV websites for pictures. I don't remember which one, but one station's top story was "Miley Cyrus: the photos weren't that skanky." There was no mention of a tornado.
 
I live in Chesapeake, and was listening to WNIS (Sean Hannity) all I heard was the EAS activated, and that even cut off the tornado warning part. It went back to programming. I think WNIS and WTAR are owned by the same company, Sinclair.

I know that Eagle 97.3 Max Media was on the ball!

Firecop
 
Did the Eagle used to be WCMS-FM?. They once had a pretty good news department as well. Debbie Meyers, Mike Meehan (before he became PD there). We left Virginia in 1990, WTAR was still owned by Landmark. Even then the handwriting was on the wall. If you were in radio news, it was time to leave.
 
Eagle is WGH 97.3. Max Media got the WCMS calls and they are on a station they own on the Outer Banks. I remember WCMS. Great local station.

Firecop
 
How did the Driver Antenna Farm fare the storm? I live in the Raleigh area, but travel to Newport News frequently and go right through Suffolk and the area where the tornado hit.
 
The antenna farms you asked about were untouched by the storms. The little town of Driver was wiped out. As of this post there were still 5 people missing.

Firecop
 
WCMS was 100.5 which was aslo country. Max media owns 100.5 (now MAX-FM, a rock station) and 97.3 WGH country. They didn't want to change WGH's call letters and WCMS didn't fit 100.5 Max-FM anymore, but they did not want to lose them either, so they moved them to a sister station on the outer banks 94.5 Water Country, WCMS.
 
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