Here's the latest from WWOZ General Manager David Freedman, who managed to get back into New Orleans to inspect the station's damage.
Below is a report of my first hand inspection of our facilities in New Orleans and some of our options:
Damond Jacob (our Chief Engineer) and I, along with Robert Carroll and Ron Curtis, Chief Engineer and Operations Manager of WWNO, entered the city by night (Wednesday) and stayed on the outskirts at the home of a friend who happens to be a sherrif's deputy and who also happens to have electricity and running water! His house had flooded, and the floor boards were buckling.It smelled moldy and felt dank. Outside, 50 pounds of rotting shrimp from his freezer added quite a heady aroma.
He had food and bottled water. Indeed, the next morning we were able to purchase groceries at a neighborhood CVS pharamcy. This might have been the only place in New Orleans where this was possible, and only because it was on the outermost perimeter of the city. There were no groceries or convenience stores once we were in the city proper-- just pallets of MRE's. We drove over to the west bank Wednesday night to inspect WWNO's tower facility. There was about 250 feet of transmission line wrapped around a guy wire. Otherwise, everything seemed to be in shape.
The next morning, we drove from Jefferson Parish to River Road, the highest and dryest route into the city itself. As we passed through the Uptown area tree branches everywhere and downed power lines and poles. There was a bushy texture the color of butterscotch just about everywhere you looked. However, the houses eerily remained standing, save for a few that had been demolished because they were ready to fall anyway -- mostly ancient brick buildings or old wooden structures infested by termites. A number of roofs had missng shingles-- always on the eastern side of the buildings. The vast majority of houses were undamaged and those that were had been hit by fallen trees and
telephone poles. The trees toppled over rigidly crashing into things while many of the poles tended to snap like toothpicks. But most of the structures I saw along Magazine Street were completely intact --
even the exposed windows that fleeing occupants had not bothered to board up. Most affected was Audubon Park-- where hundreds of fine old live oak trees lay toppled on their sides, still clinging to
bus-sized clods of earth-- a sea of trees cresting out of the ground at 45 degree angles.
Audubon Park was a staging area for some of the troops. We saw tents and vehicles in front of the zoo where people use to picnic. Platoons of national guardsmen armed with M-16's roamed the neighborhoods challenging anyone they confronted. Small bands of soldiers were marching people out of their homes and out of the area -- Black Pearl and Uptown around State Street. We were stopped 3 times by national guard units from Oklahoma. When we talked to them, it was clear that they didn't have the foggiest idea where they where or where anything else was (like Canal Street!).
Early that morning, out in Jefferson Parish at a staging area for FEMA, the place had the feel of a Latin Amerrican city -- military hustle and bustle amidst civilians standing apart in groups waiting for this or that, trash everywhere-- people hanging on to a sense of routine like a thin skin covering the steel of rifles and hand guns.
Now in downtown New Orleans, it felt like one of those outpost cities in the jungle-- say in Belize. A foot or two of water covered Canal Street from Burgundy down to my house in Lakeview , where the water
was 8 feet deep. The dry part of Canal Street looked and felt like a staging area for operations. Transposing the anachronisms-- could it have FELT much different to be on Canal Street near the mouth of the Mississippi River in the early 1800's? A host of busy people confined to a muddy island circumscribed by the mighty river on one side, and the menacing, murky waters of the swamp on all the others?
We went by the Superdome. Besides many more troops and lots of heavy vehicles parked in the area, we saw a number of camermen -- even had pole-mounted, wind-socked microphones! More trash. Way more trash. More soldiers. Way more soldiers. Water still lapped around 3 sides of the dome. The New Orleans Public Library took quite a bit of water and the building was in bad shape.
As we looked up from Loyola and Poydras street, we couild see our tower still standing atop the old Tidewater building a few blocks away.And we were pretty sure we could see our antenna, although it may be damaged. We really couldn't tell because we were only able to view the whole thing from afar-- the streets around the building are still flooded, so we couldn't get in to go on the roof. And although I had my wading boots, the water, itself, has become so deadly and unclean, its not something you want to touch, even with your boots. At that point, we opted to move on to Treme to see what had become of our broadcast studio.
In former times WWOZ resided in Armstrong park-- a park with man-made lagoons. Now it is a a nature-made lagoon with a piece of park in it. Happily, our studio is still in the park part and not in the lagoon part. We did take water, perhaps a foot or six inches, so we will loose the flooring. But Damond went into the building and ALL of our equipment seems to be fine -- downstairs in the production room and upstains in the control room. Ditto for our recordings. However, a wide portion of roof shingles have been torn off, exposing the tarpaper underneath. If we don't fix that roof in a hurry, Our equipment and recordings will be ruined.
Two other items: The transmitter atop the old Tidewater building was in a cinder block building with a galvanized roof. From the roof damage I surveyed elsewhere, and especially because it is so high up,
I have to believe that the roof blew off and that the transmitter is probably destroyed.
As you may recall, the electrical service in Armstrong park is provided by the local power company, but is the responsibility of the city INSIDE the park perimeter. For reasons best left unexplained by the city, they decided to put the park's four $250,000 transformers in concrete pits in the ground BELOW SEA LEVEL. While they are theoretically protected by sump pumps ($200 a pop), in 1995 it seems that the pumps had not been maintenanced and when the pit nearest us filled up, the transformer shorted and it was months before the city replaced it. In the meantime, we operated the station on a tiny generator (1 gallon of gas every hour, tank capacity = 4 gallons -- We had people getting up in the middle of the night to give keep it gassed up. The generator supplied just enough power to run the CD players, the mixer, the monitors and the studio-transmitter link. We couldn't run the air conditioner and at night, we used candles! Of course, once I realized that the city wasn't going to get around to replacing the transformer any time soon, I rented a proper size generator.
Anyway, I've got to believe that if water entered our studio, that underground transformer is fried. Hope I'm wrong. That means that we'll probably have to provide our own power (generator) if we move
back into our studio in the park.
This leads to STA: We have a plethora of options, but none of them seem compelling at this point. If you have any good thoughts on the matter, I would gladly enter them in the idea derby.
Here's how it looks this Friday:
Studio location:
We have a number of options. Create a temporary studio or repair and use our own. Temporary studios could be created in 3 locations:
1. A facility in Baton Rouge or even Lafayette-- perhaps a corner somewhere in an existing pub radio station or Lousiana Public Broadcasting facilities. Both Dwayne Breashears, Program Director, and
I will be living in Baton Rouge the next little while. So we could headquarter in Baton Rouge for the nonce. This would make more sense if we knew that there were a number of WWOZ show hosts who live in the area who could produce pre-recorded shows (or even live feeds?!) from these facilities.
In 2 to 3 weeks, Jefferson Parish will open back up. From all I've seen, it will be business as usual only more so. With Jefferson and New Orleans crammed into the largest usable space near New Orleans.
Damond's home is in Jefferson, in a place called Kenner. We inspected his house. It did not flood and all his equipment is in perfect shape. He has a recording studio that could be easily converted into a
control room for broadcast or production. Of course, we could not stay there indefinitely, so this is only an option if we have a timeline to move on to something more permanent that belongs to WWOZ.
Finally, there is a shopping center in another section of Jefferson, the Chateau area-- it still has electrcity, it is dry and the landlord is willing to lease us 2,000 square feet right now. We could put both
WWOZ and WWNO in this facility.
In both these scenarios, however, it will be necessary to figure out if there are enough people who are close enough to staff these facilities. There is little sense in setting up a studio in Jefferson
if people can't find housing close by. Baton Rouge is about 90 miles from New Orleans and that is probably the longest commute possible. Given the price of gas in the forseeable future, it might be too long a commute. ($20/day per person adds to the "rent.")
Finally, in New Orleans we have two options for a studio:
We could repair our own -- the roof needs to be fixed and the carpet and flooring need to be ripped out. We do not own the building, it belongs in theory to the National Park Service, although the City of
New Orleans has been "managing" it. Hard to imagine getting either of those parties' attention right now, although if this is the best course, we will go after it.
The building in which our transmitter resides is owned by Tulane University. Theoretically, we could easily place a temporary studio somewhere in that facility. However, Tulane has announced that it has
cancelled all school activities for the year (or is it the semester?). Either way, it is really important to find out if they intend to recomission that building on Canal Street, and, if so, what is the
status of the building and when will it be up and running again. I am working on getting that information as we speak.
Which brings us to the transmitter. If Tulane does not intend to recomission 1440 Canal Street, we could be in a world of hurt, even if the transmitter didn't get washed out. The best scenario is that the
buiilding will be re-opened, our transmitter works and we don't have to set up a temporary antenna somewhere else. Even if this were the case, we don't know what the city's policy is going to be on allowing people back into the dry areas as they work on unwatering and decontaminating the rest of the city. I have heard that people will be allowed back into certain portions of the city in about 3 weeks, but I think this is pretty flimsy information upon which to build a plan of action.
We have the use of whatever it takes to set up a temporary broadcast chain just about anywhere we want to put it within our 60dbu. Here again, there are options:
If we create a temporary studio in Kenner, we can place our antenna on any high building or tower. I have already checked and all the high buildings have suffered serious roof damage, so I have someone
scouting out possible towers. Some I checked on were blown down.
The other option is to place a tower somewhere on the extreme perimeter, in the Parish next to Jefferson, say in Luling by the 310/I-10 intersection, about 30 miles out of town.
Then we just need to figure out how we connect our broadcast facility to our transmitter. But compared to the rest of it, I'm gonna hope that this is a more normal challenge.
So, there's the story on the STA. Since I started writing this, I've got a roofer lined up and now I just have to get him credentials to get into the city to do the work.
I am trying to figure out our economics as I deal with all the variables. Frankly, until we get a sense of where we're going its hard to predict. I do know that we don't have any money in the operating
account except for the emergency funds that CPB gave us right away. We have a line of credit which it appears the bank will honor and people are starting to send in donations from around the country as a result of our WWOZ-in-Exile stream. Eventually we'll get insurance money, CPB CSG money and perhaps the Foundation will give us some, and we are actively seeking other sources. I understand that CPB is asking for emergency funding to restore all pubcaster facilities knocked out by Katrina. Even if there is going to be enough money to float on eventually, it is very difficult right now to know if a cash flow trough will sink us as we try to right the good ship WWOZ.
David Freedman
General Manager
Hi David,
I heard that Tulane is planning on having classes in the spring, as of their 9/5 announcement on their emergency website: http://emergency.tulane.edu/. That, of course may change and I'm sure you'll be in touch with them.
Our thoughts are with you all.
John L
Posted by: John L | September 10, 2005 at 12:14 AM