Being Prepared Helps in Hurricanes but So Does Money, Broadcasters Say
Radio transmission equipment can’t function when filled with mud, said KSBJ FM Humble, Texas, Senior Director-Technology Steven Thompson. “It was a very ugly picture,” he said of the scene he found at the station’s transmitter site when he was finally able to get there via fan boat after Tropical Storm Harvey. Knocked off the air for days by the flooding damage, KSBJ -- like many other broadcasters affected by Harvey and storms Irma and Maria -- learned a lot of lessons this hurricane season. Comments are due Jan. 22 on an FCC proceeding and planned workshop to gather that collective wisdom and help broadcasters better cope with future storms. Though they all told us planning and preparation are important, broadcasters and engineers in Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico agreed the best way to make it through a hurricane was the tip offered by Fletcher Heald attorney Davina Sashkin, who had clients affected by all three big storms. “Have a lot of money,” she said.
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A lack of funds means many AM stations spend very little on maintaining their facilities, and it shows after a powerful hurricane, said broadcast engineer and du Treil, Lundin Vice President Ronald Rackley. Many problems caused by the storm to stations in Florida, where Rackley works, have their roots in rarely inspected and poorly maintained towers and equipment, he said. Rusting guy wire anchors that aren’t secured as they should be caused many stations to lose service in high winds, he said. One of Rackley’s clients who had, by coincidence, recently built a shiny new tower made it through the storm with little trouble, Rackley said: “My best advice is to have your towers inspected.”
Basic maintenance also extends to emergency supplies, said Legal Adviser Jean Paul Vissepo of Puerto Rico’s International Broadcasting Corp. After Irma and Maria brought down the island’s power grid, Puerto Rico’s broadcasting industry became entirely dependent on generators. Immediately after the storms, most stations had only one generator, and not all of them were in the best of shape, Vissepo said. “They weren’t designed to operate for two months around the clock,” he said. Now most stations have two, so they can switch them out, but that and the diesel fuel they run on cost money, Vissepo said. “A lot of people are going to have to file for bankruptcy,” Vissepo said.
With more resources, broadcasters can better prepare, they said. Before the storms hit WPOZ Orlando President Jim Hoge, who had been through strong hurricanes before, ordered a new antenna and transmitter from Dielectric to have on hand if needed. “It wasn’t the Cadillac, just whatever they could get fast,” Hoge said. If WPOZ had lost a transmitter, the new one was ready to be swapped in to keep the signal going. Hoge also had three generators waiting on trucks in his station’s parking lot, ready to go where needed. Having replacement equipment is highly useful but doesn’t matter if a broadcaster has only one site to broadcast from, Thompson said. That’s the lesson he learned from KSBJ’s mud-filled equipment. Now he plans to pursue getting the station an auxiliary transmitter site. It is “a luxury,” but “redundancy doesn’t matter if it’s all at one site,” Thompson said.
KSBJ also had an extra transmitter, but there was no way to get it to the station through the Houston area's flooded highways, Thompson said. With many roads washed out in Puerto Rico, broadcasters couldn’t get needed staffers to where they needed to be, or even use the phones to contact them, Viseppo said. “It’s the dark ages, here,” he told us. Broadcasters should have backup personnel for those sorts of situations, he said, and plans to pool resources to help each other out. Since station personnel may get trapped at work for long periods, emergency supplies of food and water are a good idea, Thompson said. Broadcasters should “work with other broadcasters in local markets to identify opportunities for mutual aid in areas such as backup power, technical restoration capacity and broadcast feed redundancy,” said Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau Chief Lisa Fowlkes.
When stations do get knocked off the air, they can continue to provide information to the public though an online stream, Thompson said. When flooding knocked KSBJ was knocked off air, online content kept streaming, he said. But internet access doesn’t always survive storm damage, as in Puerto Rico, broadcasters said. Fowlkes called such issues “backhaul problems.”
Having lines of communication with state and local emergency officials will help broadcasters, Fowlkes said. Coordination with local authorities can help with planning in areas such as “priority fueling, access to facilities, and debris removal,” she said. Keeping the FCC informed is a good idea, too, she said. “During times of disaster, we encourage broadcasters to file communications status reports in our voluntary Disaster Information Reporting System when possible,” said Folkes. “This will promote greater situational awareness not only of who’s on and off the air but also of the challenges faced by broadcasters.” Vissepo also advised broadcasters facing a hurricane to keep in touch with the FCC, though he said that can be tough without phones or the internet. Sometimes, “there’s nothing you can do,” he said.