The Winter of Our Content

So how did you make it thru the Deep Freeze, as we called the ice event at KTAB? A few weeks ago, we had ice form on bridges and overpasses early one Monday morning. It was one of those things that there wasn't a whole lot of talk about on the newscasts the day before. And the ice just sort of appeared between 5:30 and 6 that morning.
This time Dan, Sam and Kira talked about the possibility of first, rain, then somesort of freezing precipitation, for nearly a week prior to the event. So, not only were we prepared as a news agency to cover it, emergency agencies and road crews were on top of it, and so were our viewers. So the late Monday thru Wednesday morning ice/sleet event wasn't a surprise. The KTAB team turned in hours of coverage on the freezing rain, freezing fog (that's a new one), sleet coming, arriving and leaving, plus whatever else happened because of the cold weather. Almost every school district in the Big Country called us with late start times, busses running or not, school closures and events postponed. That's a lot of phone calls with a lot of information to put on the air and the web site. There were other changes too, for Dyess, businesses, churchs, social clubs.
We aired extended morning broadcasts for those whose work and school plans changed. We did live cutins thruout the day to keep our viewers updated on the latest developments and devoted evening news programs to that topic. Plus additional information at bigcountryhomepage.com. KTAB takes the approach that there is no such thing as too much information in a critical time like that. And people took our advice... staying off the roads, or at least slowing down and driving more safely.
Maybe that was our last winter event, altho it will be cold again. Now, KTAB will start planning on how to deal with spring storm season.