Mark Starling knew when daybreak arrived last Friday in western North Carolina that the scenes his listeners would face would be jarring.
“You’re not going to know how to react,” he told the audience of his WWNC(AM) morning show, “First News on 570,” that day.
He recalls, “I just kept telling everybody: It’s OK to be scared, it’s OK to not be OK.”
With the worst of the rain and wind from Helene falling during the overnight hours on Sept. 27, residents couldn’t tell what was happening. The Asheville area quickly lost cell service. Starling, who is also the station news director, knew his role would shift to providing news and information to people in need.
“All of a sudden we had to be a voice for people who had no way to get information.”
Having spent several years on-air in Florida, he is no stranger to aftermaths of hurricanes. But in his ninth year in Asheville, he knew this would be different. The area, nestled in the Appalachian Mountains, is not accustomed to such events.
Living at the studio
The calls poured in Friday morning. Starling’s shift usually ends at 9 a.m. but he stayed on air and didn’t go home. As it turned out, he couldn’t have anyway, as upwards of 150 trees blocked the entrance to the iHeartMedia’s Asheville studios.
A week later, he’s left the studio twice for about ten minutes to check his home. He expects power to return at his residence shortly but water restoration could take months.
Starling has lost count of the emotional moments.
On Saturday, he took a call from a nanny living in a trailer in the hills who needed help. “She said a tree was about to fall on top of her trailer and the only thing holding it back were other trees.” About an hour later, Starling took a call from a listener who said a friend with a chainsaw was on his way from north Georgia to help the first caller, and he connected the two of them.
But he has come up against the tragedies. Starling took a call that same day from Michael Drye, an older acquaintance of his wife’s and who had done work for her in the past. Drye who was stranded on the second story of his home along with his wife and his seven-year-old grandson. “As he was on the phone, he described an 18-wheeler floating down his street,” Starling said. He urged Drye to stay in touch.
Sadly, he found out that all three people lost their lives, swept away by the ravaging floodwaters.
In the past few days, he’s been directing what has amounted to a crowdsourced search and rescue operation on air. He believes in just the past three days callers into WWNC may have saved upwards of 30 lives.
Starling praised iHeartMedia’s engineers including Ben Brinitzer and Jeff Littlejohn for helping to keep WWNC on the air throughout the storm and its aftermath. WWNC has been simulcasting to the entire Asheville seven-station cluster commercial-free.
He also commended Kent Terry, technical operations director for iHeartMedia, for providing IT assistance. “He’s taken my calls at 2 in the morning and remoted in and fixed whatever we’ve needed, the absolute pinnacle of support,” Starling said.
He expressed similar gratitude toward the company’s corporate and sales teams, calling out News/Talk EVP Chris Berry and Greensboro Operations Manager Zac Davis. “I’ve felt 100 percent supported.”
Amateur radio assist
But at one point last Friday the station lost internet and phone service. Cell service was already unavailable, creating a dilemma for Starling. “We could talk to listeners, but other than looking out our window, we couldn’t relay any updates,” he said.
That’s where the power of amateur radio came in. Starling’s good friend Andy Suhren (KO4YSD) brought two amateur radio handheld transceivers to the studios on Friday, navigating and wading around the tree damage. Soon, local hams were providing reports to Starling, which he was able to relay on the air.
“We’d cut back to syndicated programming only to gather information, and then we’d listen to the hams, and go back live on air.” He characterized the role hams played that day as “literally lifesaving.”
The station was able to take calls again the next day, when Ben Brinitzer and James Gay arrived at the studios with Starlink units strapped on their backs. “It was the most beautiful sight I’ve seen in my life, other than looking at my wife,” Starling said.
Speaking of whom, his wife Brandi played a role herself in coverage. An emotional moment went viral Monday when she called into WWNC, the first time Starling was able to speak with her since the storm hit. Brandi, the couple’s 17-year-old son and their dog had to ride out the storm for at least eight hours in their Toyota 4Runner. Brandi, a therapist, immediately started relaying updates coming out of a town hall meeting in Black Mountain. “She did a better job on air than paid correspondents,” he said.
Far from normal
Being a morning drive show on a news/talk station, Starling’s show has gotten political at times. He said the mayor of Asheville, Esther Manheimer, hadn’t appeared on his show since the first year he joined WWNC. After the storm hit, however, the two communicated numerous times. The mayor expressed her appreciation for his coverage. “Political persuasion means nothing at a time like this,” Starling said.
Starling’s anchor work received national recognition, but Starling emphasized the work of his colleagues. He praised producer Tank Spencer’s efforts as heroic. “He’s one of the most incredible human beings I’ve ever been around, a diehard in every way.”
Starling has co-anchored coverage with Eddie and Amanda Foxx, the morning show team at sister station 99.9 WKSF(FM). Josh Michel and Ariel Rymer from sister stations 104.3 WQNQ(FM), Jeremy Greene from 880 WPEK(AM), Aaron Michael from WKSF and Kix Layton from 92.5 WESC(FM) in nearby Greenville, S.C., have also been featured throughout. All seven of the cluster stations have been broadcasting without commercials this week.
He doesn’t want to make radio the story while the search for survivors is ongoing, but feels that the vitality of broadcasters has shined in Helene’s aftermath. He says the iHeart stations in Asheville have been the class of the market in terms of coverage.
“Radio has saved many lives in the past week here, and if this doesn’t prove to the people in Washington that AM radio needs to stay around, I don’t know what else will,” he said.
Still, “It’s going to be a long time before things get even close to things get back to normal around here.” The damage in Asheville and nearby locales throughout Buncombe County has been described as “biblical.” And Starling feels that the national coverage of events in western North Carolina has not done the situation justice.
“We’re three stories down in the headlines,” he lamented. “A few photo-ops of flooded streets, and it’s like we’re almost already out of the current news cycle.”
The number of fatalities attributed to Helene had risen to 215 as of late Thursday.
