In The Eye Of The Storm: Community Broadcasters In South Carolina

Wayne Mulling

COMMUNITY BROADCASTERS/SOUTH CAROLINA Regional Market Manager WAYNE MULLING just walked back into the office after bagging sand with a half-dozen staffers. He offered ALL ACCESS the big picture of how his stations plan to handle HURRICANE FLORENCE at her worst:

"We are doing everything possible to keep constant hourly updates on-air for our listeners. We have picked five of our strongest stations and are filtering most of our updates through those five stations. These five, incidentally, cover from tip to tip of our state coverage. We get all of our updates through our TV media partner, WMBF-TV/MYRTLE BEACH and FOX NEWS. WMBF-TV started going wall-to-wall with HURRICANE coverage on THURSDAY night [9/13]. We re-broadcast their coverage all through the night, and except for our live shows on FRIDAY [9/14], we will continue to do so through SATURDAY [9/15], which is WMBF-TV's plan as well.

"We have hourly updates, as well as local guests on our Talk stations; such as the Police Chief,  State Police, Mayor, Emergency Preparedness Director, etc. who have been working with us to bring us all up to date info to share with our listeners. All interviews from local contacts, are  'FACEBOOK Live' and posted immediately on our FACEBOOK pages, and tweeted out as well. It is all planned to work cohesively.

"We are working as one unit, particularly through all of our own stations that are in the state. We have 14 stations across the I-Corridor, which broadcast signals across the entire Pee-Dee coverage area from FLORENCE, SC (what irony), as well as our stations in SUMTER, which cover the Midlands, and our stations in ORANGEBURG, broadcasting to the Low Country. We have actually been approached by WMBF TV/MYRTLE BEACH to allow them to cover over to our FLORENCE station (as they get out of MYRTLE BEACH), and we will be letting them use one of our studios to broadcast from here.  

"What we are already doing. we will continue to do, is communicate on the stream, and through our digital assets across SC, and social media, and TWITTER; precisely what is being broadcast and communicated on-air. Everything posted online links our reader to our stations on-air. Everything on-air, directs our listeners to find more information of the same kind, on our digital assets. Otherwise it is a wasted effort. Everybody here knows their job, and knows what is needed to make what they do, work in synchronicity with everyone else. 

"As to the welfare of our staff: Every one of my staff has been communicated with all this week, and everyone knows with whom to communicate daily. We are using "texting" a great deal. That way, the half-dozen senior leadership team members will know, every day, where every staff member is, what their condition is, what do they need, and do we need to make arrangements with local authorities to move them out of the location they are in now. 

"We have purchased air mattresses so that every staff member across SC knows which office to go to if they have to evacuate their current location, and they all know that we will house them as long as necessary. we have generators in place to keep the stations powered up, and the refrigeration working, so that we can have fresh food for anyone who needs it. We have provided sand and sand bags for listeners who need it as well ... at no charge

"It is times like these that makes one proud to be in radio, because only radio is still the prime media source that everybody can still hear updates from, even when all power is down," MULLING concludes. "We are the only source, the trusted source, after all these years, that can give people, oft-times, lifesaving direction for the well-being of their lives. That's who I represent at COMMUNITY BROADCASTERS every day; and am proud to do so."

More From Myrtle Beach

The staff at DICK BROADCASTING's MYRTLE BEACH cluster are hard at work providing the Grand Strand with live local coverage of HURRICANE FLORENCE. "We've got a great bunch of people who volunteered to come in and ride out the storm, so we could give the listeners great local radio coverage in a way that cannot be done in any other medium," OM CHARLIE STEELE said. "A big thanks to DAVE PRIEST, LIZ CALLAWAY, SCOTT MANN, RICK ROBERTS, and FRANK BRODSKY, for all they do."  

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