Southwest Florida, In the Eye of Ian

By
Adam Jacobson
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0
The scene outside WINK-11 in Fort Myers just before 5pm Wednesday.
The scene outside WINK-11 in Fort Myers just before 5pm Wednesday.

Updated at 3:15pm Eastern


DELRAY BEACH, FLA. — As the noon hour arrived in Lee County, Fla., on Wednesday, local media across Southwest Florida began their wall-to-wall coverage of Hurricane Ian — a ferocious monster that was now heading for landfall near Captiva and Sanibel Islands off the coast of Fort Myers. It was a shift southward from the Tampa Bay area. Time was running out.

Radio stations shifted to simulcasts of local TV stations’ coverage — a way for the television stations to continue to reach local residents in the likely event of a power outage. Then, the storm surge came. It devastated the locally owned CBS affiliate, WINK-TV.

While that station remains off the air, others continued to provide vital information.

Beasley Media Group Top 40 WXKB “B103.9” as the 2pm hour approached on Thursday (9/29) continued to simulcast WBBH “NBC2” in Fort Myers, the NBC affiliate owned by Waterman Broadcasting. 

Renda Broadcasting’s Country WWGR-FM 101.9 was also simulcasting a local TV station, believed to be WBBH or “FOX4,” The E.W. Scripps Co.-owned WFTX.

Meanwhile, iHeartMedia-owned WOLZ “95.3 The Beach” in Fort Myers was simulcasting a co-owned station in Tampa Bay.

For Sun Broadcasting’s radio stations, which share facilities with WINK-TV, they, too, were silent.

With radio stations streaming local TV stations as of 2pm Wednesday, the chances anyone locally could see their coverage was diminishing by the hour. Ed Ryan, the Editor of Radio Ink shifted away from his duties at the industry trade publication and put on his reporter’s hat. Communicating with RBR+TVBR via text, Ryan shared, “It’s total devastation here. Businesses are under water.” That was in Fort Myers Beach, on the opposite site of Lee County from the Gateway section of Fort Myers where Ryan resides.

By 5pm, home internet service was down but the power was on and remained so. At daybreak Thursday, Ryan ventured outside to find downed trees strewn everywhere.

The situation in Fort Myers Beach, the focus of Ryan’s “Beach Talk Radio” podcast and online news service, was far more devastating. Times Square, where Ryan co-hosts his podcast most Saturdays with his wife, Kim, had been all but washed away, leveled by the ferocity of the storm’s winds and tidal surge.

Meanwhile, Dylan Federico, the lead meteorologist for WINK-TV, Twitted at close to 3am that the station’s staff, moved up to the second floor for safety, was being evacuated by fire/rescue.

This only could happen after flood waters receded. As of 5pm yesterday, the water level was so high that the main news studio was compromised, with reports of three feet of water rushing in.

Federico used Twitter and his personal Facebook page to offer updates.

 

As the 7pm hour neared on Wednesday and the skies began to darken, much of the storm had moved north into rural parts of Central Florida. The Tampa Bay region, which saw water literally drain out of the bay and officials plead individuals from refrain from entering the temporarily dry expanse to take selfies, was receiving substantial rain and wind from the east. That’s the “clean” side of the hurricane, which is now taking aim at metropolitan Orlando — where many in the Tampa-St. Petersburg area evacuated to.

Randy Kabrich, the veteran radio industry programmer, resides in Palm Harbor, due north of Dunedin. As of 6pm, he told RBR+TVBR that with the wind and rain picking up, he expected a power outage to become inevitable.

Forty minutes earlier, he noted that The E.W. Scripps Co.’s WFTS-28 in Tampa, the ABC affiliate, had experienced an internet outage and had been unable to go on the air.

By 11pm, Ian was on its approach to the Orlando area. There, Cox Media Group‘s ABC affiliate, WFTV-9, offered extensive coverage as anchors Martha Sugalski and Greg Warmoth pulled marathon shifts. Reporters were live in Cocoa, Sanford and Mount Dora. On Hearst Television-owned NBC affiliate WESH-2, anchor Summer Knowles comforted viewers.

By early Thursday, a WESH reporter would truly become a life saver.

Tony Atkins had been with a news crew at an intersection for a long duration. Then, a nurse en route to work became trapped in her car, stuck in high water. Atkins spotted her waving for help; he rescued the woman.

As the 3pm Thursday hour began, Flagler Radio — serving Flagler Beach and Palm Coast — went into an all-news simulcast, using the resources of WNZF. The Flagler Beach Pier, which was slated for demolition, received significant damage. Low-power WQFB-FM “Surf 97.3” was dark as was the beach webcam. Power outages were rampant.

Meanwhile, the East Coast of Florida also experienced weather troubles associated with Ian, too. On Wednesday night, multiple tornadoes touched down in Hollywood, Cooper City and Plantation, while one twister came within one-quarter mile of Radio + Television Business Report’s editorial office.

While most of the impacted areas are now out of Ian’s way, the cleanup begins. And, local media will be counted on as a key information source.

In today’s InFOCUS Podcast, presented by dot.FM, Solmart Media co-owner Tomás Martínez shares how serving listeners to his two Spanish-language radio stations in Southwest Florida with unique content dedicated to Hurricane Ian both on-air and online came together in a time of emergency.

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