WEIM's heroic effort - Ice Storm '08

[mrschuyler@aol.com]

Greetings from the Lunar Iceberg, alias Lunenburg, Gateway to Townsend.? Twelve days without power here on the Hilltop of Great Reception.? Thank goodness for AM 1280 the Blend, a/k/a WEIM in Fitchburg.

Morning host/station manager Ben Parker (formerly of WRKO) and his news director Scott May put in marathon hours, keeping grateful listeners informed and reassured.? Longtime former morning man Ray C, now the station's public service director, came out of semi-retirement to anchor some afternoon and evening coverage.? Weekenders and the gentlemen who host the late night Spanish programming pitched in.

When the station lost power during the storm, the City of Fitchburg provided back up generators for the studio's STL and the Alpine Road transmitter.? That's probably the main reason why WEIM was at reduced power.? The other local AMs, WCMX 1000 Leominster and WFGL 960 Fitchburg stayed off for days on end.? They didn't have a prayer.

AM 1280 expanded its live, local morning show until noontime, and broke into syndicated shows (John Tesh, Billy Bush, AT-40, etc.) with regular updates.? Parker and Company took calls from local city and town officials as well as regular folks with all sorts of useful information, such as where the emergency shelters were, which streets to avoid, and where the power was and wasn't restored.

Boston media shunned us.? The first couple days apparently struck WBZ Radio's anchors as a novelty rather than a crisis.??After many of us had been in the cold and dark for a week, THEN it became a story.? It was as if the Fitchburg-Leominster area had been suddenly moved west of the Daniel Shays Highway, judging from the major market's reaction.? On Channel 4's 11 o'clock news on December 21 (as I saw?at a friend's apartment in Leominster because Lunenburg was still 50% powerless), Mayor Lisa Wong of Fitchburg was identified by the Chyron operator as "Lisa Wall."? Thanks for adding insult to injury, CBS!

I spent the first week of this disaster living across the street at a neighbor's house.? He had running water and a working fireplace; my house had neither.? I sat late into the night, staring into the fire, listening to my faithful dog snore while my portable radio played whatever programming AM 1280 was broadcasting at the moment.? I discovered two things:

(1) Despite how obnoxious he seems to me on TV, Billy Bush does one helluva good radio show.

(2) The need to preserve, protect and defend community-oriented local stations, especially ones located in No Man's Land, is absolutely critical to the public interest, convenience, necessity, and in this case safety.? WEIM saved lives.

---James Eric Schuyler
?? former radio Chyron operator