Twin States Weather Blog

Very Interesting Conversation

* While I was writing the previous entry, I had a visitor at my table here in the hotel breakfast room. The man's name is Bill Capo, and he is a reporter and part-time meteorologist at WWL TV in New Orleans.

* Bill shared his fascinating story of covering Hurricane Katrina. Due to staff safety issues, WWL made the decision to split their staff. They sent half to Baton Rouge and left half behind in New Orleans. Bill was among the group sent to Baton Rouge, where they broadcasted from the campus of Louisiana State University. Bill slept on the floor of his daughter's dorm room at LSU.

* When they finally returned to New Orleans, things were nothing like they remembered. The devastation was overwhelming. Their parent company had brought in a powerful generator, fueled by a 10,000 gallon gas tank. They hired a group of men to provide security from looters for the fuel supply. Bill recalled that hand sanitizer was a must; everything in New Orleans was dirty from the flood waters.

* Bill also told me all about their website - a site that I checked frequently durin the course of the hurricane. They have averaged several hundred thousand hits a day since the hurricane, and their corporate server crashed during the hurricane because of the large volume of users accessing the site. They have a dedicated group of 3,000 evacuees staying in New Jersey. These displaced New Orleanians check the webiste almost daily.

* None of us will forget what Katrina was like, both here and along the Gulf Coast.

posted by WTOK Weather Staff @ 7:47 AM