THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, January 9, 1996 TAG: 9601090268
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B7 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: THE BLIZZARD OF '96
SOURCE: Larry Bonko
LENGTH: Medium: 80 lines
When the snow started to fall on Hampton Roads Saturday night, WAVY's general manager, Edward L. Munson Jr., and acting news director, Dave Strickland, decided to go all out in covering the storm.
They ordered let-'er-rip, never-mind-the-overtime, put-people-up-in-hotels, wall-to-wall coverage.
The NBC affiliate stayed on the air through the wee hours of the morning Saturday with ``Winter Storm of 96'' coverage anchored by Lisa Joyner and weather updates from meteorologist Jon Cash, who showed up on camera with a great big paper snowflake on his lapel. Cool.
``We decided that our coverage of a storm that would affect almost every person in this area would be the best. We showed nice hustle, I thought,'' said Strickland, who took over Channel 10's newsroom when news director Gary Stokes moved to Buffalo, N.Y., last month.
Hustle, indeed.
Not waiting for dawn's early light Sunday to resume coverage of what would become the Blizzard of '96, WAVY was on the air throughout the night with Cy Bolton reporting from Mount Trashmore in Virginia Beach, Tom Cobin checking in from picture-postcard-pretty Colonial Williamsburg and Andy Fox on the Peninsula showing that you can have fun in the white stuff by snowboarding with kids.
You know the storm coverage was a big deal at WAVY when at 5 a.m. Sunday morning, the station brought in its No. 1 anchor team, Les Smith and Alveta Ewell, plus weather reporter Don Slater, to keep the coverage humming and to take calls from viewers.
Home-care nurse June in New Kent County was on the phone to report a foot of freshly fallen snow. She said she was going out in it anyway to tend to patients.
As the storm built Saturday night, the news teams from all three network affiliates were covering the story with high energy on both sides of Hampton Roads. They told you about church services being canceled in Tabb and Smithfield. They told you about shelters, and where they were, and they told you about numbers to call to check on road conditions.
At WTKR's studios in downtown Norfolk early Sunday, weather reporter Greg Padgett was up on the roof in hooded parka, gloves and scarf, looking utterly miserable in 35-degree temperatures with wind chill near zero.
On Saturday night, he was wearing goggles, too.
Later Sunday, Channel 3 put on its 6:30 local newscast with ``bubble gum and bailing wire,'' to quote anchorman Ed Hughes, who is in his 29th year with the station. The explosions in downtown Norfolk early Sunday afternoon robbed WTKR and other businesses of power until early Monday.
Hughes said the station used emergency generators to power the 6:30 newscast and relied on equipment in its trucks and vans to produce the newscast co-anchored by Jan Callaghan.
``It was a miracle we got it done,'' said Hughes. At 11 p.m. Sunday, even the bailing wire and bubble gum didn't help as power cut on and off.
WTKR's news teams faced a double challenge - a monster snow storm to cover and a power outage. Who says there's no such thing as Murphy's Law?
The first on-camera report of the explosions in downtown Norfolk I saw came from WAVY's Doug Aronson. Later Sunday, just before the start of the National Football League playoffs on WAVY at 4 p.m., Jim Lawrence popped up on camera with a weather update.
Nice hustle, indeed.
And shouldn't we be bowing to Lawrence for predicting late in the fall that a big snow was on the way for Hampton Roads this winter?
As dawn broke on Sunday morning, with snow changing to a cold rain, Hughes appeared on camera from a Norfolk marina, wondering out loud if somebody might bring him coffee and a ham biscuit.
``Nobody ever did,'' said Hughes. ILLUSTRATION: JOHN C. BELL
Gerald Owens, right, a reporter for WTKR, reports on the dangerous
driving conditions at 5 a.m. Monday from Brambleton Ave. and Voss
St. Flurries were falling and the temperature was in the teens.
KEYWORDS: WINTER STORM BLIZZARD by CNB