My heart is heavy as I read the reports out of North Carolina in the wake of Hurricane Helene. As of Monday afternoon, the death toll had risen to 143, with 56 of those lives lost in North Carolina — the state I called home for many years.
The Tar Heel State is not only where I attended college, but it is also where I started my career as a broadcaster; and where I learned the value of community reporting during my time at WCHL(AM/FM) in Chapel Hill, N.C.
It was no surprise that, during times of inclement weather, when our FM signal was down, WCHL would point listeners to our AM feed for emergency updates, or our online stream (if it was even available).
Amidst my sorrow in learning more and more about the hard-hit communities in western North Carolina, I also feel a fierce sense of pride for my fellow broadcasters who are working in grim conditions to keep their communities informed.
From the Washington Post, I learned about a little country music station in Canton, N.C., that worked hard to deliver emergency information to its local community during the storm. In the story, residents talk about jumping into their car to hear the latest updates interspersed between music. Without power or cell service, WTPL(FM) was and is a lifeline for county residents.
Tuesday afternoon, Duke Energy reported that around 640,000 customers were still without power in the Carolinas — just one of the many roadblocks to recovery.
From CNN, I heard about a patchwork of local radio stations across western North Carolina, like WWNC(AM), that worked to combat misinformation as well as reassure and comfort their listeners. The station’s airwaves were also used as a means for listeners trying to locate their loved ones.
Blue Ridge Public Radio reports that, in Buncombe County alone, at the heart of Asheville, N.C., it is unclear how many people are still missing; although county officials estimated that 600 were still missing as of Tuesday.
Aerial footage captures the extensive flooding in Asheville, North Carolina, as Helene submerged buildings. pic.twitter.com/15R89vWTvf
— AccuWeather (@accuweather) September 28, 2024
My former WCHL News Director Brighton McConnell, whose family hails from Brevard, N.C., just 33 miles from the catastrophic flooding in Asheville, shared some sentiments that I would like to relay here.
He wrote: “There’s still so much we don’t know, but what we do is harrowing and sobering. Not just prominent places, but many little towns, communities and shops just washed away or battered to the point of demolition. This will be a months-long and years-long recovery for so many folks.”
What sticks out to me here is his point about the small towns and communities who may be fighting an uphill battle in the dark (literally), without the attention of big media outlets. This is where community broadcasters come into play to elevate local needs and voices. And it is a story we have seen over and over again through every natural disaster.
Here at Radio World, we recognize the importance of radio in our emergency alerting infrastructure. We constantly report about ongoing efforts to bolster the Emergency Alert System, and AM radio’s resiliency in times of crisis.
[Related: “Radio: A Lifeline in Times of Crisis”]
Around this exact time in 2022, it was southwest Florida that took the brunt of Hurricane Ian’s 150 mph winds. Back then, I reported about some of the Floridian broadcasters that carried on amid community destruction.
At the time, Florida Association of Broadcasters President Pat Roberts told Radio World that, with so many people out of power, TV stations knocked off the air, internet signals down and cell phones dying, the efficacy of radio as a form of communication in disaster scenarios was unparalleled.
“We’ve worked over the last 30 years to make sure every TV station has a partnership with radio stations so they can stay on the air broadcasting on radio; and they tell everybody that for days ahead,” Roberts said in 2022. “So it really becomes [that] radio is the lifeline to the community.”
As the storm progressed stations owned by @BeasleyMedia, @iHeartMedia and @COXMG extended their coverage to continuously give listeners lifesaving information. #WeAreBroadcastershttps://t.co/yJOWppXX9g
— National Association of Broadcasters (@nabtweets) September 29, 2022
Roberts’ experience highlighting emergency radio rings true in the wake of this past week’s events, with AM and some FM stations proving resilient in faring stormy weather.
Natural disasters tend to make me pause and wonder why there is still hesitation in passing the AM for Every Vehicle Act. While the bill may soon be voted on by the full House after finally being pushed through by the House Energy and Commerce Committee this September, I marvel at how long it took for this legislation to get here. (The AM for Every Vehicle Act was introduced in Congress May 2023.)
There are many reasons why, in addition to AMs being able to cover large geographic areas, most of FEMA’s 77 Primary Entry Point (PEP) stations are AM radio stations.
[Read more stories about the future of AM radio in cars]
You can read all you want about AM radio’s resilience in the face of natural disasters, but, as it is with most things, you might not understand it (or even care about it) until you experience it firsthand.
I’ll close out this commentary by sharing a little bit about my own experience.
I was born and raised on the island of Guam. Sitting in the northwest Pacific Ocean, the island is no stranger to natural disasters, and is often threatened by typhoons on a year-round basis. Most recently, in October 2023, Typhoon Bolaven’s winds battered the island.
While I lived through several typhoons as a young child, the one that sticks out the most was Typhoon Pongsona in 2002. I was just seven years old.
Pongsona was a Category 4-equivalent Super Typhoon — the same reported strength of Hurricane Helene when it made landfall.
Pongsona produced strong wind gusts peaking at 175 mph, which left the entire island without power, destroyed about 1,300 houses and caused more than $730 million (2002 USD, $1.24 billion 2024 USD) in damages. Living in a concrete house, my family was one of the lucky ones. Local indigenous communities suffered the worst.
What I remember from that disaster was wringing out one sopping towel after another to push up against every entry point into the house. I can still feel how raw my little hands were after doing so for hours.
My mother recalls, late into the night, holding a mattress up to our sliding glass door, trying to keep the water out and the door from shattering in.
My father, however, recently told me about who and what kept him company during those long hours. While the technology landscape was very different in 2002, one thing has stayed the same. My family’s only contact to the outside world during the typhoon was a small AM station, broadcasting out of a local church, that could be heard through our emergency radio. He recalls how the AM offered up prayers and gospel throughout the typhoon, helping to keep him grounded — a tether to normalcy.
Now, anyone who knows my father knows that he is not a religious man. But, in times of crisis, when you are offered a lifeline, you take it and hold on tight.
If you’re able, I’d encourage you to donate to the North Carolina Disaster Relief Fund. All donations will go to nonprofits working to meet the immediate needs of storm victims.
