The tornado outbreak this past Thursday took place in mostly rural Ohio. How comprehensive was local radio’s coverage during the storms other than emergency notification system before, during and after. Not asking about major city coverage that flanks these rural areas. The actual local stations that cover the affected areas? Anyone stand out with superior or innovative coverage?
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What Kind of Coverage Did Your Local Station Provide During the Tornado Outbreak
- Thread starter delgriffith
- Start date
Sounds like the 1 DJ did what was expected: repeating the warning. What else could the DJ do? How many tornado warnings end up being nothing? There were 577 issued that day. I have been behind the microphone during tornado warnings and trust me, the news director isn't there and nobody is telling you anything even when you reach out and can catch someone after hours. I am guessing the iHeart station covers a pretty large area bigger than just Plymouth. Sure it is a newsworthy event: news that is. Did you tune in when they do the news? I wouldn't expect a national morning show to talk about it. Now would I expect TV's Good Morning America to do so either. In the news segments, yes, but not the program itself. Might this be a case that no matter what the station did it would not be enough for you?
For the Indian Lake area tornado, that would have still been within range of WHIO-FM, with a transmitter still in Shelby County. I would venture to guess they had coverage, possibly with a TV simulcast. I saw the news director WCSM in Celina on Facebook with info, I would imagine that was also on the air
^^^I keep hearing that local radio is so important with discriminating information in these types of situations. Sounds like Celina may have stepped up. What about Lima, Wapak, Bellefontaine, Findlay/Upper, Delaware, Newark?
They no longer carry any local news reports on that station. The county EMA director posted on Facebook while the warning was in place that this was confirmed Tornado on the ground roughly 1/2 mile wide, and said it was a particularly dangerous situation since it was after dark. Would have thought the EMA would have called the local radio station to help relay that information to folks in the path. The coverage the next day is what was more disappointing to me. Local folks homes were destroyed and and all you heard on the morning show was Bobby Bones and his cohorts laughing it up. Seemed tone deaf.
That lack of local news is too frequent. There is nothing worse than being on the air and not getting any info but the warnings. You make calls and people won't talk to you because they're too busy. I've been there. Depending on the coverage area of the station you mention, carrying Bobby Bones versus coverage of the aftermath is a toss up. After the fact most already know whatever you might report. If it was a Class A, then I'd try to arrange for local coverage but if a Class C I'd have to consider the wider coverage and what is best for that wider coverage. Bobby Bones could have been just what the doctor ordered after all that devastation. I can't make that call but sometimes normalcy is the best medicine for saying there is hope and things will be alright in time. I presume you learned information from other stations and/or media. 100% of media does not need to do the same thing at the same time.
What were other stations on the dial doing? Were they doing regular programming? How about TV? Did they preempt network programming for coverage? Even those stations with no news department?
What were other stations on the dial doing? Were they doing regular programming? How about TV? Did they preempt network programming for coverage? Even those stations with no news department?
The TV stations were giving excellent coverage showing where the tornados were. There had been a tornado watch all day. So, we were ready for this event as far as giving warnings. I suspect most radio stations were getting their information from the TV just like us. Had a twister come near us we would have told our listeners.
The objective of the government administered EAS system is to be able to broadcast accurate emergency warnings and information on all stations without human intervention at the station level. This way it does not matter if a station has staff on duty or is fully automated.
The EMA or other official entities do not "call" radio stations as most have nobody around at night and on weekends and few have qualified people outside of mornings (if that) during office hours.
There are many stations that have no local announcing staff, so they could not do reports even if they wanted to. Some rural stations have just one or two employees, and they spend much of the time outside the station doing sales.
There is a famous case from decades ago where highly poisonous materials were spilled near a town in the Dakotas in the middle of the night. The local stations were on the air, but with no staff in the building. The authorities were supposed to activate the EAS system but apparently nobody remembered to do that or even knew how. Like you are doing now, many blamed the stations, yet they were equipped to run government emergency notifications... but they did not activated the system.
Radio's inflation adjusted revenue is off by about 70% in the last 20 years. There are more stations than ever, and less money brought in.
I didn't hear it, but WPKO 98.3 FM in Bellefontaine is one of the finest examples of "local radio" anywhere. I am certain they covered it before, during, and after.
I've periodically tuned into a YouTube meteorologist that gives real-time weather analysis during situations like this.
Over 90,000 people were viewing when I started. About 45 minutes later, the number had jumped to about 96,000. During the text chat, many were asking about the severity and direction of the varied cells this individual was watching as it took place. Many people were getting responses.
Seems like 'new media' has supplanted 'old media' in situations such as these.
You can watch all nine hours of coverage here:
This individual has 1.7 million subscribers. There are other meteorologists out there (Dr. Reed Timmer, et. al.) that have similar channels and followings.
Over 90,000 people were viewing when I started. About 45 minutes later, the number had jumped to about 96,000. During the text chat, many were asking about the severity and direction of the varied cells this individual was watching as it took place. Many people were getting responses.
Seems like 'new media' has supplanted 'old media' in situations such as these.
You can watch all nine hours of coverage here:
This individual has 1.7 million subscribers. There are other meteorologists out there (Dr. Reed Timmer, et. al.) that have similar channels and followings.
But...
Unless you know there is a storm front of tornadoes forming, you would not look for this service.
Unless you have storm-proof Internet service, when you need this most you may not have it.
Most people under 30 don't understand that services that depend on landlines or nearby cell towers may not work during severe emergencies.
In the massive hurricane 7 years ago in Puerto Rico, at one point over 90% of cellular towers were not working. Electricity was out in 100% of all locations. Landlines were not restored in some areas for months. Internet was down in most places, and did not return for weeks or months. One radio station out of 130 was still on the air... an AM that had a generator, reinforced concrete walls, well built towers and a week's worth of fuel. No TV stations survived.
A cellphone with rechargeable batteries will not connect with anything and the battery will discharge in a few hours.
"This stupid phone won't get TikTok anymore!"
The irony here is that most stations do not have an interest in providing essential and potentially life-saving information during or immediately after a disaster. Hopefully, most residents of Puerto Rico have adopted Starlink for internet service since the hurricane.
Just curious…Did everyone on the island rely on this one radio station for information after the hurricane? Did any of neighboring stations in Punta Cana provide info for the western side of the island?
louis-p that is a very unfair statement and simply a lie. I am in radio. We are VERY interested in informing the public in such situations. You have no clue the position radio stations are in today. At the station I work for revenue is about 25% of what it was around 1984 adjusted for inflation. Even if there was someone in the station, you don't have much more that what the National Weather Service doles out. Most stations are struggling to have a couple of employees and are forced to automate or voice-track other shifts to survive. The station I work for has one live shift a day but a rule that voice-trackers must 'real-time' stay on top of what's happening in the area during their shift. Since our voice-trackers are less than 50 miles away, that's a bit easier to do.
As roads flooded in Houston during Tropical Storm Allison, I was on the air. Yes I called the Emergency Management Center and nobody would talk to me. I asked for a fax that never came. All I got was National Weather Service flood warnings. There was nothing in those statements to indicate most thoroughfares and some freeways were impassible. I would have loved to announce lifesaving info but I couldn't get anybody to tell me anything. The best I got was 'travel is not recommended' as 5 o'clock rush hour came. Yes, I was the only one in the building. We had no news department because we couldn't afford it (lucky thing there was a local news service that sold a ten second in casts for your station in AM drive). The real issue is you can't get info from bonafide sources in an emergency situation.
I rather resent posters who degrade radio folks when they simply have no idea of what the business is like these days. We literally do the best we can with the revenue we can generate.
As roads flooded in Houston during Tropical Storm Allison, I was on the air. Yes I called the Emergency Management Center and nobody would talk to me. I asked for a fax that never came. All I got was National Weather Service flood warnings. There was nothing in those statements to indicate most thoroughfares and some freeways were impassible. I would have loved to announce lifesaving info but I couldn't get anybody to tell me anything. The best I got was 'travel is not recommended' as 5 o'clock rush hour came. Yes, I was the only one in the building. We had no news department because we couldn't afford it (lucky thing there was a local news service that sold a ten second in casts for your station in AM drive). The real issue is you can't get info from bonafide sources in an emergency situation.
I rather resent posters who degrade radio folks when they simply have no idea of what the business is like these days. We literally do the best we can with the revenue we can generate.
It's not that. It is that most stations have very small staffs today and most music stations have no news department at all. They certainly don't have newspeople on staff waiting for a once-in-a-lifetime hurricane.
They have not. It's very expensive and the average income in Puerto Rico is well below that of Mississippi, the lowest of the 50 states.
The station that remained on the air, WKAQ, is on 580 and can be heard over a big portion of the Island but not all of it... particularly the west and southwest.
There are no Dominican AMs with any power directly across the straits. In any case, rural station in the Dominican Republic have no news department at all. If they carry news, they get it from one of the Santo Domingo stations they might be affiliated with. Like all of Latin America, government is highly centralized. There is little local news to cover other than auto accidents and robberies and small stations bill much less than their equivalents in the United States.
A few of the Santo Domingo stations could be heard on the west coast of Puerto Rico, but that was years back before most of them reduced power to save money due to the move of nearly all the audience to FM. And, in any case, why would they have any interest in serving Puerto Rico when they had the effects of the western side of the hurricane themselves. Further, where would a Dominican station get information on what was happening in Puerto Rico?
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btuner1 it wasn’t my intention to diminish the hard work and dedication that people in radio are doing under reduced budget and limited resources available as well as poor coordination from emergency management agencies. My comment was referring to a trend in the radio industry as a whole and meant to be an attack on hard-working people keeping the stations running.
However, up until the great consolidations in the mid-90s, radio stations in large & small markets would disrupt music or regular programming to cover natural disasters and stay on the air a few days after to provide information such as road closures, power outages, where to go for bottled water and critical supplies, and feedback from callers offering help or food to those who need it.
Other than a few remaining family-owned and locally-owned stations, I don’t hear the same level of coverage from radio stations today. I tune in to (highly rated) stations in areas impacted by tornadoes, hurricanes, fires, etc. and most stations are playing automated music or syndicated programming. Again, many of these stations are corporate-owned and the shareholders are more interested in squeezing revenue out of these stations instead of investing in and serving the local communities.
Frontline produced a documentary on the fires in Paradise, California and a local official admitted that the emergency services communicate with the public via a Facebook page and mentioned that there’s no local station that serves the area anymore.
In another example, the premier of Quebec advised citizens to check the social media channels for critical information during the fires in that province.
Using this thread as an example, Logan County, OH is currently in a state of emergency and the national guard has been deployed to assist with the situation. I have been listening to Mix 98-3 WPKO mentioned earlier for the past 30 minutes (during local morning drive-time hours). I’ve heard details around clean-up efforts and where to go for help. Good on them for stepping up!
I realize that this is a radio message board and I’m not here to debate, criticize the people in the industry, or attack the hard-work people invest to keep stations running.
I hope that radio doesn’t lose mindshare with the general public. I work in networking infrastructure and I’m aware of the single points-of-failure in the public internet, especially for remote communities and island nations. It only takes one major disaster or cyber attack to knock significant segments of the network offline. Radio can be a lifeline for several communities and “new media” cannot replicate this level of service.
I fully agree. Radio can be the one lifeline if radio has prepared for this. I was with a locally owned station that pondered a generator but decided against it because we rarely lost power and even if a hurricane hit and we were off for a couple of weeks, the loss in revenue would not offset the cost and maintenance of a generator. So, if a station has the ability to stay on the air, it can feed needed information.
I think part of the issue is today social media has replaced much of what radio was relied upon to cover somewhat exclusively. I think radio has somewhat conceded and decided social media is the winner.
Still, I can recall when Hurricane Harvey was appearing to be headed straight toward Houston, everyone evacuated. Roads were so congested and at a standstill, desperate people took to violence and theft to get what they needed. You see, stores and gas stations closed or had no inventory remaining. A couple of ladies I spoke with at a cafe 3.5 hours away from Houston spoke of a 30+ hour ordeal on the highway. They had gas in cans to get there and blankets to tie around them to urinate in the highway. And they were both armed (as they needed to be in a few instances during the ordeal). The stations in Houston talked about the stalled traffic and interviewed drivers. The News/Talker in Austin was running non-stop information such as places still open for food, diapers, water, etc. where to find gas and less congested backroads with estimated travel times. Imagine, a station 2.5 hours away had the info people wanted and needed but Houston radio didn't. My station called KLBJ and got permission to relay information they aired if we'd agree to give them an hourly report from Houston. So, I get where radio fails when they could excel.
I think part of the issue is today social media has replaced much of what radio was relied upon to cover somewhat exclusively. I think radio has somewhat conceded and decided social media is the winner.
Still, I can recall when Hurricane Harvey was appearing to be headed straight toward Houston, everyone evacuated. Roads were so congested and at a standstill, desperate people took to violence and theft to get what they needed. You see, stores and gas stations closed or had no inventory remaining. A couple of ladies I spoke with at a cafe 3.5 hours away from Houston spoke of a 30+ hour ordeal on the highway. They had gas in cans to get there and blankets to tie around them to urinate in the highway. And they were both armed (as they needed to be in a few instances during the ordeal). The stations in Houston talked about the stalled traffic and interviewed drivers. The News/Talker in Austin was running non-stop information such as places still open for food, diapers, water, etc. where to find gas and less congested backroads with estimated travel times. Imagine, a station 2.5 hours away had the info people wanted and needed but Houston radio didn't. My station called KLBJ and got permission to relay information they aired if we'd agree to give them an hourly report from Houston. So, I get where radio fails when they could excel.
The consolidation of the mid-90's was motivated by the fact that half of all stations were not profitable at the time. All kinds of factors were involved, ranging from the profusion of big box stores to the horrible increase in FM stations in many markets due to Docket 80-90, but stations in smaller and medium markets everywhere had to cut staff and fight for survival.
Fact: adjusted for inflation, radio revenue is off by about 70% since the year 2000.
Again, a town that could not support local radio any longer because chain "big box" stores, retail consolidation and Internet advertising had reduced the available ad dollars below what was needed to sustain a radio station.
Different country with very different radio regulations. A major operator of stations sold a high percentage of their properties and said that radio is "unsustainable".
The problem is that stations that are not profitable or which are minimally profitable are unable to keep people on staff for emergency events which happen rarely... maybe once in a lifetime or perhaps many years apart.