Station Disaster Programming - Florida Firestorm

["Sandra G. Gitschier" <gitchzoo@bellsouth.net>]

Evening Everyone

Some time ago, during the great ice storm and recently, during the
flooding in New England, many with our group mentioned about the poor
coverage given to those emergencies.

As the nation is aware, we're having a big problem with wildfires.
Here in Jacksonville, our leading news=talk station WOKV 690 (former
WAPE - 690) became a great fountain of information concerning
evacuations, fire locations, highway closures etc... even giving
information to those in Volusia, Flagler counties and St. Augustine and
Palatka as well. They're the only station on AM here in Jacksonville
that can reach clear down to North Palm Beach with thier 50kw NDA stick. 
When things were getting crazy, they even pre-empted Rush Limbaugh. WOKV
has come a long way from being mostly an all-bird to a great source of
local/regional news and talk. My hat's off to them.

Also, Three FM music stations in Volusia County - Daytona Beach, FL
(WHOG-FM 95.7 WVYB 103.3 WKRO 98.(1?) suspended regular music
programming to relay the Firestorm/evacuation coverage of Daytona's only
News-Talker WNDB 1150 (1kw). It's been a great past few days in Florida
Broadcasting. I've been quite impressed. It was a great day to aircheck
too...

I intend to give frequent regular traffic reports and related disaster
and detour info for N.E./Central Florida region as I do my half-day
shift tomorrow at WYHI/1570 as we're the first AM in I-95 coming over
the Georgian border. 

Ron Gitschier (Rocky W. Shore)
Weekend Guy
(Weekday color weather radar analysist during impending storm
conditions) 
Full Time Navy Sailor/WLLH Alum
Mayport, FL

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