In this letter to the editor, the author responds to our Radio World SmartBrief request asking readers to share insights into their disaster recovery and emergency plans ahead of the Atlantic hurricane season, June 1 through Nov. 30. Comment on this or any article. Email radioworld@futurenet.com.
Hi Paul!
Caught the “station hurricane-ready” in the SmartBrief. Reminded me how we (at WSFL-TV in Miami) had a BOOK (probably 3″ thick) for hurricane disaster recovery.
Everything you could possibly think of was in this thing, and it proved valuable every couple of years. First thing was the “partnership” created between us and the local PBS station to share facilities under the idea that it would be possible … or even likely… that one of the facilities would face damage.
There was even a third contingency at a location to the north (Deerfield Beach) for both us and the PBS. This third contingency was literally in our newspaper printing facility (which was Mammoth) which was over 1 million square feet, and had four 1 MW generators (4 million watts of back-up power!).
On a side note, newspaper printing presses were DC powered. I was “shocked” (pun) to see this massive rectifier room that converted the power to DC for these giant German printing presses that were nearly 100-yards-long and three stories tall!
Anyhow, if I can find my electronic copy of the hurricane disaster plan for this former Tribune [Broadcasting] station, I’ll forward it.
— Dan Slentz
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