Local News Goes into Sandy Overdrive

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As we move into Day 2 of Hurricane Sandy (now reclassified as Superstorm Sandy), TV news crews from Washington to Boston are working at full force providing wall-to-wall coverage, armed with precautions including ropes to tether satellite masts, cash in case of getting stranded and out-of-market reinforcements.

Having planned for storm coverage since last week — and after ramping it up over the weekend — stations went wall to wall starting at 4 a.m. ET Oct 29, and as Gannett’s WUSA Washington News Director Fred D’Ambrosi puts it: “I’m assuming we are going to be on the air for the next several days and we are prepared to do it." Throughout the day Oct 29, local TV news operations in Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York and Boston ran non-stop storm tracking radar images and news tickers with emergency information and weather updates. Reporters, many pulling 12-hour shifts, stood by coastlines and waterways from Ocean City, Md., to New England poised for potentially destructive surges. Bracing for widespread power outages cutting off viewers’ access to television, stations put particular emphasis on feeding websites, social media and mobile apps — among the most likely sources of information accessible when the power goes out.


Local News Goes into Sandy Overdrive