Irma’s Gone, But Far From Over
• We understand that as many as 20 Florida radio stations remain off the air or are operating on reduced power in the wake of the serious damage caused by Hurricane Irma. Renda’s WGNE (99.9 Gator Country) and AC WEJZ/Jacksonville fall into the later category, as Operations Manager Chuck Beck explains, “Last Monday morning we lost power because the transmitter site flooded. We had about a foot of salt water in the building (as shown here). We are currently back on the air at low power — WEJZ was back on Tuesday night and Gator was on Wednesday night. Like I said, it’s low power for now, but it’ll get us through until the transmitter room is gutted and new transmitters arrive. We lost everything down there. Otherwise we’re all good. Our staff was safe — just a few tree branches to pick up. We were pretty lucky!”
• We also caught up with John Rozz, PD of Sun Broadcasting Classic Rock WARO (94.5 The Arrow) and Alternative WXNX (93X), both located in the heart of the hard-hit Ft. Myers/Naples, FL area. As Rozz explains to RAMP, “WARO was one of only two stations in the market — the other was WINK-FM — to make it through Irma without going off the air! Arrow remained on generator power until it ran out of gas around 2am last Thursday. We were off the air for approximately nine hours because the road leading to the transmitter was under six feet of water!” he said. “Luckily, the water did not get into our transmitter room. WARO used a 10,000-watt emergency remote transmitter to stay on the air until Saturday, when we returned to full power.
Rozz continued, “93X did go off the air during Irma and remained off until last Wednesday at noon. The road leading to that transmitter site was not only under water, but numerous trees were also down, making it impassable. We are currently running on generator power and our fingers are crossed the road is cleared in the very near future!” [Ed. note: moments after Rozz sent this update, he hit me back with this late-breaking news: “As I type, 93X just went off the air — I think we finally emptied our back-up generator fuel! I’ll keep you posted!”]
