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New York TV News crews in Puerto Rico to cover Hurricane Maria

Can anyone share how the local media (radio & TV) fared? We hear 100% of the island was without power. Did stations have generators to stay on the air? Did radio on neighboring islands or from the US provide strong signals with coverage for the people on the island? I.e., how did the media fare during this emergency?
 
david said:
Can anyone share how the local media (radio & TV) fared? We hear 100% of the island was without power. Did stations have generators to stay on the air? Did radio on neighboring islands or from the US provide strong signals with coverage for the people on the island? I.e., how did the media fare during this emergency?
Click to expand...

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/news/local-tv/wapa-america-opens-feed-puerto-rico-coverage/168827

WAPA did coverage of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico.
 
david said:
Can anyone share how the local media (radio & TV) fared? We hear 100% of the island was without power. Did stations have generators to stay on the air? Did radio on neighboring islands or from the US provide strong signals with coverage for the people on the island? I.e., how did the media fare during this emergency?
Click to expand...

Following the hurricane's passage, only WAPA 680 AM and and several of its owned affiliates (1260 in Ponce and several synchronous repeaters of each) remained with intermittent service. WIPR 940 was back shortly thereafter. WODA (FM) also returned, but they had never had a news department.

WKAQ, the highest rated news talk station, lost its roof, windows and some wall sections. They got back by using an emergency studio at the transmitter site located in a filled mangrove swamp and provided information as it became available.

WUNO 630, another news talker, returned shortly thereafter.

That is out of 142 stations of all kinds licensed to the Island.

The problem for many was storm damage and flooding. Those that did not sustain that type of damage had their microwave antennae and other communications masts and towers ripped off their buildings and destroyed. There is no commercial power anywhere on the island, and around 95% of the cellular sites are inoperative and most landline phones are not working.

Nearly every station on the Island has a generator. Power failures are common, and one can count on running on a generator for as much as once a week on average even without a storm; the power company is in dire straits and was amazingly unreliable. But if you are flooded or have no windows or roof, the generator does not help.

Many stations that had no news department evacuated their staff, particularly the AMs "on the Island" (meaning "outside San Juan") that are in low locations with studios at the transmitter site.

The islands adjacent to PR to the east are the Virgin Islands, where there are no Spanish speaking news personnel, and the signals of the few AMs were either off due to the hurricane (St Croix) or barely operating after Irma (St Thomas and BVI). None of those stations reaches any farther than the coast of eastern PR, and not very well at that.

To the west is the Dominican Republic. There are essentially no higher power AMs in far eastern areas of that country, and FMs don't reach PR well. While some higher power AMs from Santo Domingo reach western PR, the signals are weak and those stations have storm issues in their own nations to worry about (besides the fact that AM is nearly dead in the DR).

Keep in mind that no US mainland station... the nearest being Miami which is 1,000 miles from San Juan... gets to PR in the daytime and night reception is nearly useless due to interference on the same channels from stations in South America, Cuba, the DR, Jamaica, etc.

Puerto Rico is very isolated by language and distance. Once peoples radio batteries run out, they will not be able to listen to anything. Full restoration of power and communications may take 6 months in some areas.
 
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RadioPatrol said:
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/news/local-tv/wapa-america-opens-feed-puerto-rico-coverage/168827

WAPA did coverage of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico.
Click to expand...

No TV station is on the air. WAPA did coverage for its cable service to the US, but apparently there was severe damage to the TV sites for Ch 2, Ch 4 and Ch 6 on Cerro La Santa and, in any event, power is out to 100% of the Island so portable digital TVs, besides being rare, only last an hour or two before needing a recharge.
 
Thanks for that roundup David.
 
RadioPatrol said:
http://abcnews.go.com/International...aria-category-storm-barrels/story?id=50025414

Dam Failure has taken place during Maria.

https://www.local10.com/weather/hurricane/puerto-rico-seeks-to-rebuild-after-hurricane-maria

Update
Click to expand...

There has not been a dam break of the Guajataca dam... yet. What has occurred is severe erosion around a relief spillway in similar fashion to the emergency at the Oroville, CA, reservoir during the heavy winter 2016-2017 rains. Lots of water is going over the spillway, and has eroded the little creek bed it flowed into.

There is still a threat of a full break in the earthen dam, but some news media decided that the spillway damage was the same as a dam break. Because nearly all communication is down, exaggerated stories coming off the Island are all over the Internet. And that just makes a bad situation worse.

Complicating this is the fact that the media with reporters on the ground generally have them stationed at the luxury San Juan hotels where there are generators, so they have no idea what is going on outside the tourist zone. I was dismayed and, to an extent, amused by a major network reporter positioned outside a very low income housing project which he called a "condominium community". Beware of fake news which is a product of ignorance.
 
DavidEduardo said:


There has not been a dam break of the Guajataca dam... yet. What has occurred is severe erosion around a relief spillway in similar fashion to the emergency at the Oroville, CA, reservoir during the heavy winter 2016-2017 rains. Lots of water is going over the spillway, and has eroded the little creek bed it flowed into.

There is still a threat of a full break in the earthen dam, but some news media decided that the spillway damage was the same as a dam break. Because nearly all communication is down, exaggerated stories coming off the Island are all over the Internet. And that just makes a bad situation worse.

Complicating this is the fact that the media with reporters on the ground generally have them stationed at the luxury San Juan hotels where there are generators, so they have no idea what is going on outside the tourist zone. I was dismayed and, to an extent, amused by a major network reporter positioned outside a very low income housing project which he called a "condominium community". Beware of fake news which is a product of ignorance.
Click to expand...


Thanks for the Update I did not realize its the spillway thats eroded though. I heard all the national news outlets say its a dam failure in Puerto Rico.
 
DavidEduardo said:


There has not been a dam break of the Guajataca dam... yet. What has occurred is severe erosion around a relief spillway in similar fashion to the emergency at the Oroville, CA, reservoir during the heavy winter 2016-2017 rains. Lots of water is going over the spillway, and has eroded the little creek bed it flowed into.

There is still a threat of a full break in the earthen dam, but some news media decided that the spillway damage was the same as a dam break. Because nearly all communication is down, exaggerated stories coming off the Island are all over the Internet. And that just makes a bad situation worse.

Complicating this is the fact that the media with reporters on the ground generally have them stationed at the luxury San Juan hotels where there are generators, so they have no idea what is going on outside the tourist zone. I was dismayed and, to an extent, amused by a major network reporter positioned outside a very low income housing project which he called a "condominium community". Beware of fake news which is a product of ignorance.
Click to expand...


https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-new...e-fears-hurricane-damaged-puerto-rico-n804236

Update NBC news is saying its a fear of a Dam Failure in Puerto Rico as a result of Hurricane Maria.
 
PTBoardOp94 said:
Thanks for that roundup David.
Click to expand...

Yeah, only just reading this. Just seen in the BBC how bad this actually is. We often forget, when moaning about the weather here, how lucky we are.

Are the US Virgin Islands also badly hit, or have they escaped the worst?
 
The disaster in Puerto Rico is a perfect example why listeners should invest in crank-up radios. In addition to AC, battery, and solar, these radios have a small generator which allows operation for 30 minutes or so on a wind up.
They're available on Ebay at a variety of prices.
This would be a good promotion for a radio station when things get back to normal.
 
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