Mother Nature Sends Miami Back To Stone Age

CLEAR CHANNEL RVPP/SOUTH FLORIDA and WHYI (Y100)/MIAMI PD ROB ROBERTS filled ALL ACCESS in on life in his market, post HURRICANE WILMA -- Day 4.

"There are 3 million folks without power -- that's 95% of metro MIAMI without juice. Over 900,000 folks in DADE COUNTY lost power and just over 30,000 are now restored. And, here in BROWARD COUNTY around 850,000 lost service and just over 3,000 now have juice. That's right, just 3,000."

ROBERTS, a long time resident, noted that this is the worst the power has ever been following a hurricane. "Every time we've had a storm FLORIDA POWER & LIGHT has had increasingly worse results. It's obvious our power grid here is not in great shape. They are talking the middle of NOVEMBER now before everyone is back on line. At my house, I still don't have power yet but WIOD PD PETER BOLGER and WBGG PD RICH McMILLIAN just got it back and they live a mile from me.

Everything is a Herculean effort. What's a hot shower?"

"Thankfully there were not a lot storm-related deaths and injuries, but there are a lot of life-changing inconveniences as a result of the electrical situation: lack of ice, water, gas, no goods and services -- everything is a HERCULEAN effort. What's a hot shower?"

Studios Are A Sauna

He goes on to talk about how the lack of power has affected operations at CC/MIAMI. "We're on generators here and have adequate fuel to run the studios, but no air conditioning. The studios are a sauna. The only blessing is that while we have no AC, the weather has been cool. High of 80 and lows in the 50s, and very little humidity, so that's a break.

"We are letting sales folks work out of their homes where they have power, as it's getting hard for some folks to get into work now as so many are running low on gas. As a result, some of our folks have been sleeping here. I passed a gas station today with a line that was over 4 miles long. I know that the last guy in line is not getting a drop of it."

ROBERTS also handed out big praises for his staff, and his fellow CLEAR CHANNEL stations across the state. "Everyone here in the building has just gone above and beyond. I have to salute the staff at (N/T) WIOD-A who have been absolutely amazing with their coverage! I want to thank our sister stations in TAMPA and ORLANDO who helped truck in some badly needed water for us today. FEMA is here but it took them a while to get in place, so lines are long."

And, behind every hurricane, is a silver lining. "With the power out, every traffic light is dark, so driving is a mess. Perhaps the most amazing thing is that people are actually observing each intersection as a four-way stop -- which is a real shocker as FLORIDA has the worst drivers in the world. It's little things like this that give me hope for humanity."

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