Atlanta Tornado

I can only imagine what transpired during the Atlanta tornado. The news assignment desk is Ground Zero. You quickly come up with a plan of attack to cover all angles of the story. Reporters and Videographers are called in. For big news stories such as this, the entire building is pressed into duty helping with phones or gathering information or sending pictures to the web or any task necessary for covering the big story. Each reporter has their specified assignment whether it be the 'nuts and bolts,' the victims, the damage, the help agencies, evacuation plan, cleanup...

Usually your anchor team is on the air constantly giving updates, tossing out to your reporters in the field, doing phoners with officials and emergency personnel who are currently dealing with the disaster. There, hopefully, is a constant flow of fresh information streaming to the anchor team as well as the reporters working in the field. Even during the huge power outage in 2003, we stayed on the air non-stop. We may not have been broadcasting to many people who were in the dark but we were giving important information to those who could view us!

These stories do not come very often, but when they do, you have to be ready and kick it up a few notches.

I'm sure our Atlanta affiliate, WXIA, took the above steps and more being in the center of the breaking news story. It's not out of the realm of possibility if there is a huge breaking news story, for all local television stations to work together. It's amazing how the competition, who usually duke it out on a day to day basis, often time come together during disasters.

Everyone eats, breathes, and lives at the station in order to cover this history-making story.

We've had our share including the Success Tech shooting, the CWRU hostage situation, and the Midwest Power outage of 2003.