In late September, 2024, hurricane Helene hit parts of Florida and caused wind damage and severe flooding in Georgia, South Carolina, and especially Western North Carolina. Hurricane Milton hit Florida in October, 2025, causing even more damage there. In both storms, electricity was knocked out, cell phone service disrupted, and Internet was down for many. In these disasters, local and regional radio largely remained on-the-air, alerting listeners to the storms’ arrivals and keeping them updated with news of emergency services, relief sites, and a lot more. Christian Vang and Dave Anderson are broadcast engineers in Northern Georgia and Tampa, Florida, respectively. Both are seasoned in planning for disasters and working those plans while being flexible in emergency response, all the while keeping studios and transmitters operational. Chris Tarr joins us as well with some additional notes on emergency preparedness for broadcast engineers.







Show notes:







We ran out of time, but Christian asked that we share with you this drone video from the Asheville, NC, City Government







Guests







Christian Vang - Broadcast Engineer/IT SpecialistDave Anderson - Chief Broadcast Engineer at WUSF Public Media







Hosts







Chris Tarr - Group Director of Engineering at Magnum.MediaKirk Harnack, The Telos Alliance, Delta Radio, Star94.3, & South Seas Broadcasting







Follow Kirk on Twitter - @kharnackFollow TWiRT on Twitter - @TWiRTshow and Facebook







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