Wilmington DTV Switch Is On

"Everything is on for Monday," said Gary McNair, general manager of WECT-TV, the NBC affiliate in Wilmington (NC) even if a category 1 hurricane blows into town Friday or Saturday. Category one has winds of between 74 and 95 miles per hour and storm surges of 4-5 feet, with no anticipated damage to structures other than "unanchored mobile homes and shrubbery." The station is preparing to pull the plug on analog early (Monday, Sept. 8), along with four other Wilmington stations, as part of a market test of the national switch to digital Feb. 17, 2009. McNair said the plug will get pulled "unless there are lives at stake," and he doesn't expect that to be the case. Tropical storm Hanna is threatening the East Coast, but McNair said "go" status for the switch would only change "if there is a storm that was going to be here Monday. The only reason we would delay this is if we were in the thick of things right then, and I just don't see that happening."