I have a question. What do the local news people do during

[krisj]

Francis? Do they evacuate too and there is no news? Do they risk their lives and hang on tight? I am just curious.

[btsgmdad]

In Ft. Myers they evacuted to a local shelter and broadcasted from there during Charley.

[THead]

not sure if he was in the main studio or not, but brian norcross was the infamous weatherman that managed to keep broadcasting right thru andrew, didn't they even make a movie about him?

He's still chief meteorologist at cbs 4 in miami.

[yzerfan]

They generally have a safe back-up place to broadcast from if their building isn't considered storm-safe. And then you get 24 hour coverage of "Hurricane George is still in the Gulf, and it's starting to rain hard" for a day or three. When the storm's making landfall, there's not very much information coming out, but what they do say can be critical, so you're stuck watching them rebroadcast the tape of the EOC head talking about surge zones for the 211th time because you really do need to hear it if there's suddenly word about tornados in your area.

And of course when they feeder bands start to get rather vibrant , they've got to send the intern out to do a "it's starting to get really windy" shot involving standing next to the bridge over the Intercoastal. I think it's some sort of Southeastern tv station requirement that they haze their interns that way.

[Brent]

The CBS Tampa station moved to an EOC center somewhere because their studio was under a mandatory evac during Charley. They have backup plans. If a TV station, especially in Florida, doesn't have a storm shelter capable of broadcasting from, they are stupid IMO.

[WxGator]

bts - I live in Fort Myers and ABC and NBC shared their studios (same ownership) and broadcasted from there the entire time. Perhaps CBS broadcasted from a shelter but I never saw that.