Our blogger buddy Romani Heart (still one of the best names in the business) blogs from Madison County, the epicenter of Wednesday’s earthquake, and offers this:
Greetings from the flippen epicenter. Yeah, what’s the big deal? If I were living in L.A. and my house shook like that, I may say “no big deal,” but when you’re sittin in the Western NC mountains, it tends to rattle your cage a little. We had a few small tremors at work today, aftershocks I guess, enough to make your teeth rattle. Being someone with no social life and an abundance of time on my hands, I check the usgs.gov quake site often, the amount of shaking going on that we never feel amazes me. Because I’ve been doing this for a couple of years, I can tell you that it’s pretty rare to have a 3.8 ANYWHERE in the eastern U.S. So yeah, it’s a big deal. And yeah, WLOS dropped the ball.
You tell ’em, girl. Totally agree. I have to disagree with Dave, respectfully – last night was the perfect time for local TV to go Holloway on coverage. Why? Because it’s hot and people want information. News outlets can help people, even if nothing happened, by delivering information that explains, helps them cope, gives them a chance to vent, etc.
And like Romani said, this shit doesn’t happen every day, at the level we felt, in Western North Carolina.
One more snippet from Romani, who, if I may pimp, has a great little blog. You really should check it out:
On the five o’clock news there were interviews with many of the locals. Of course, they never interview anyone with a lick of sense. First there was a pitiful lookin’ snaggle toothed woman who said, “My doublewide, it was a shakin’! I said the world wasa comin’ to a end!!” The next interview was a reasonably intelligent looking woman who said, “At first, I thought it was a creature climbing along the roof, but then I remembered, we have an A-frame house, so there was no way a creature could go across the roof. So of course, then I thought of aliens, the house was shaking all over!!”
Aliens. I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried.
A few more comments on the quake, then we’ll move on:
Edgy Mama
-So I’m sitting out here on the San Andreas fault, and there’s an earthquake in Asheville? I’m worried about Pooty too, Ash.
My reply
-Yup. You missed it, babe. Our world was rocked and you were … oh, wait. I think I’m getting a delivery … Hmmm. Looks like another note from Pooty! Must process –
Watcher
-WLOS did report it on air last night. At the end of the newscast, Cuevas told us the size and location before the end of the newscast.
1 Comment
While I agree the coverage WLOS had was not good, they did report it. I’m sure the folks at WLOS will learn from this situation. When you have an entire broadcast produced and halfway thru the show an earthquake hits, your show should “go out the door” and the rest needs to be focused on providing as much info as possible. In order for this to happen, everybody in the newsroom must be on the same page! This did not happen last night! WLOS does not have any managers that work nightside. Unfortunately this is normal in TVNEWS. The decision usually comes from young procuders. Last night, someone with experience should have stepped in and salvaged their newscast! In the end, all people care about is information. In this case the info was minimal, 3.8 near Hot Springs, now stretch that into 15 minutes and TVNEWS! It’s tough and I’m sure they learned alot!