Puerto Rico | Media Overcomes Severe Storm Damage from Fiona
At 3:20pm Eastern on Sunday, Hurricane Fiona made landfall — barely — in Puerto Rico. With winds of 85 MPH and the storm at Category 1 status, it touched the southwestern tip of the island to the south of Mayaguez.
That was enough to wreak havoc on the entire U.S. commonwealth, which left nearly every community without electricity. By Monday morning, nearly 70% of LUMA Energy customers were still in the dark. According to El Nuevo Día, more than 778,000 lack safe drinking water due to filtration plant issues linked to flooded rivers.
Despite all of the problems, broadcast radio and television stations remain on the air.
Just past 3pm Monday (9/19), more rain was in the forecast, putting totals ahead of the 12-20 inches of rain as tropical storm advisories were in effect. Ponce, in the south, and western communities including Yauco and Quebradillas were among the areas worst-hit by Fiona. According to AccuWeather, Ponce received 29.5 inches of rain across the last 72 hours.
Compared to Hurricane Maria, cell phone service is largely intact, as Fiona’s force was more rain-related and less a factor of wind. That said, the city of Guayama had 28.6% of its cell towers out as of Sunday, the FCC reports. In San Juan, to the north, it was just 5.4%.
Now, the good news for broadcasters: As of Sunday morning not one television or radio station was reported as out of service.
In fact, in the 4pm hour Hemisphere Media Group’s just-obtained WKAQ-FM “KQ105” was playing the hits, with Sebastian Yatra’s “Tacones Rojos” airing across the cadena heard across Puerto Rico. On market-leading spoken word WKAQ-AM 580, a full-throttled effort to inform listeners about the storm and the latest weather forecast was on the air.
At Spanish Broadcasting System’s Puerto Rico stations, all of the regular programming was on the air Monday afternoon. That said, every station was in storm mode, with top-rated WMEG “Mega 106.9” afternoon program “Molusco y Los Reyes de la Punta” offering live updates. The program is simulcast on WSUN “El Nuevo Zol 97.1” in Tampa and WPYO “El Nuevo Zol 95.3.”
According to SBS EVP/Programming Jesus Salas, company leaders and staff are already getting together with the U.S. National Guard and U.S. Coast Guard to hold a nationwide drive “to deliver whatever we can financially to the island.”
This includes dry goods, drinking water, canned food, generators and other supplies, mirroring an effort conducted following Hurricane Maria that saw 100,000 tons of donations sent to Puerto Rico.
With radio stations serving as lifelines to Puerto Ricans, the FCC reported that as of Sunday morning the island’s cable and wireline companies reported 1,028,960 subscribers out of service in the disaster area for Hurricane Fiona; this includes the loss of telephone, television, and/or Internet services.
“Radio, again, continues to be able to connect on the island, and it is exactly the same situation as it was during Hurricane Maria,” SBS President/COO Albert Rodriguez tells RBR+TVBR. “Where TV is not able to deliver the pictures because of access and deliverability, audio can thanks to our signals across Puerto Rico.”
- Source: Radio+Television Business Report