JANUARY 2005 ICE STORM IN EAST-CENTRAL INDIANA

by radio station engineer Sean Mattingly of WLBC / WERK / MAX / WHBU / WXFN


The 1/5/05 ice storm and resulting power outages crippled East Central Indiana for many days. It rained for a couple days, causing flooding.  Then the rains turned to freezing rain.  Many residents were without power for 5 days or more. At a radio station, a disaster of this type brings the staff together to do some of their best and most useful work.  Important weather information was prepared and broadcast under adverse conditions, both inside and outside the radio station's various buildings.  The workers braved darkness, cold, dangerous roads, and some went without meals and sleep to make sure the public was kept informed.
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1/5/05 - Above is a pic from the storm. Delaware, Madison, Blackford counties were a wreck of trees that were overloaded by ice. This is a main road, Madison street on the way to Cowan road. There were so many downed trees to clean up. This tree stayed just like this for three days. At 7:45 Wednesday night, the power went out to the Daleville studios of WERK/MAX/WHBU. The power was out with dark neighborhoods from Daleville to Muncie. Ice was hanging from everything. Might as well just turn on a microphone and say that EVERYTHING is cancelled.
Just when it seemed that nothing could get worse, the four WLBC basement sump pumps failed, causing the basement to flood with 4 feet of water and the furnace to get flooded. The 2 AC powered pumps would not work at full volume on a backup generator.  They kept tripping off the generator's circuit breaker.   And one battery back-up pump failed within an hour.   The other battery pump ran for a couple hours, and was overheating and smelled like burning tires before expiring.  On the other end of the WLBC building, the sunken sales area floor was being overcome by floodwater.  The water rose through the concrete floor and covered it with 1.5 inches of water.
 
Formal Disaster Proclamation from 1/5/05

DELAWARE COUNTY LOCAL EMERGENCY PROCLAMATION

City of Muncie, Delaware County, Indiana
January 5, 2005

AUTHORITY

Whereas, the City of Muncie, Delaware County, Indiana due to several thousand of downed power lines, downed trees, and flooded roads, have decided to declare a state of emergency.

The Mayor of Muncie and Delaware County Commissioners are requesting all citizens to stay off the streets to protect yourself from the potential of electrocution from more than 3,000 downed power lines.

The Mayor of Muncie and Delaware County Commissioners have imposed this ban until 6:00 a.m. Friday January 7, 2005. Extended until 6:00 on Saturday January 8th, Travel restrictions are no longer in effect, however residents are still urged to remain off the streets.

This emergency declared by the Mayor of Muncie and the Delaware County Commissioners is to restore utilities and public services as quickly as possible.

The Mayor of Muncie and Delaware County Commissioners have also asked area law enforcement agencies to enforce Indiana statutory law and may make arrests to expedite the restoration of services and utilities to the community.  If individuals impede emergency services, or utility companies, arrest may occur to aid these restoration efforts.

The Mayor of Muncie and Delaware County Commissioners are asking that all citizens stay home unless it is an extreme emergency.

In witness, whereof, we have hereunto set our hand this 5th day of January, 2005

<Signature, Tom Bennington> <Signature, Dan Canon> <Signature, Wm Gosnell>

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Above is a scene with the WERK 104.9 tower in the distance. Due to heavy ice loads, trees are split and cracked, everywhere. AEP power company rents space on this tower from WERK. Their power generator failed, so they had to hardwire in a backup backup generator.
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Many residents were going to hardware stores looking for a source of backup power.  We couldn't find a big generator anywhere in town to power the radio stations with. Borrowed a shaky 1970's generator. Ran the 50,000 watt station WLBC on this little generator at 62 watts for a while. It was better than nothing!  Behind it is a brand new generator purchased from Sam's club in Indy that turned out to be defective. Couldn't start it. It had an electrical failure, with no spark at the sparkplug! Aargh.
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1/6/05 - On backup power with only a handful of electronics plugged into a small generator via extension cords. The WLBC morning show was broadcast from the Newsroom in the dark. Above is Steve Lindell and Tom Hammond working by the light of one 60-watt bulb. They began the show hours early. 115,000 Muncie-area customers without power due to ice overloading power lines in multiple counties.
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Working in the cold studio, Steve is trying to make me laugh. Later that morning, the Muncie mayor walked through our dark building to find us broadcasting from the small newsroom. He was interviewed, giving crucial information about a city and countywide state of emergency.  WTHR-TV Channel 13 flew over the radio towers and showed all the heavy ice coating the towers.  They reported that we were "the only radio station in the area" that was able to stay on the air during the power outage with all the ice.
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The WERK van parked at WLBC with a flooded yard in the background. The trees looked neat with all the ice on them.  I measured 3/4 of an inch of ice on top of the tower's guy wires.

That night, a very determined Leland Franklin decides he needs to do an emergency show from the WHBU transmitter shack on Ridge Road in Anderson. Only problem was, the power was out at the transmitter. Leland called me on my cellphone. I was delirious after working for 36 hours straight. Leland said he was GOING to do a show from the transmitter shack. I still don't know how Leland and the mayor were able to demand that the Anderson power utility to get the power back on there. Within 40 minutes, they had power on, and Leland was on the way there with my key and an armload of remote gear. They did a show till 11pm.
Since the Daleville studio building for WERK / MAX / WHBU was without power, I went around to the transmitter sites that did have power and setup a simulcast of WLBC. At one point we had built a network of simulcast stations including WERK, WHTI and WHBU, all taking programming from WLBC. I had to visit each transmitter building to rig up radios and temporary wire antennas to do that.
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1/7/05 - Next day, a "great" day of adversity I'll never forget. The WHBU morning show with Leland Franklin and Brett Busby standing in the transmitter shack which is in a field down the road from a junkyard. Leland and his "mall studio" board ops and I were standing in a circle in the doorway of the small shack. We were taking turns updating listeners on storm damage and places to get shelter and supplies. During the show, I wired up a telephone interface box and we were able to take calls on the show! We had to give out the unlisted number for the transmitter building over the air to do it. Oh well, it sounded good. People showed up at the site to bring food, and get on the radio with emergency information. The morning show lasted till 11am, before joining up with WLBC's simulcast - which by this time included 4 of our stations being called a "Severe Weather Network". After hearing the improvised WHBU morning show, a competing radio engineer stopped by the WHBU transmitter shack to ask Leland and I how we did it.
At about noon that day, the power came back on at the Daleville studios, and I was able to return 5 radio stations to normal programming.
On the way home that evening, I drove through Blackford County to the Hartford City transmitter site of WHTY.  The roads were especially slick in that county.  The transmitter building door was covered with a very thick coating of ice.  It took me about ten minutes to chip away enough ice to get the door open.  The doorknob was as large as a grapefruit.  Below is a photo of a fence in Anderson which is coated with ice.

1/8/05 - There were 72,000 Muncie customers without power. 1,400 extra power company employees on the job from many states. National Red Cross sets up headquarters in Muncie.

While I was at work Saturday, icy tree limbs fell at home in Anderson.  Parts of this new fence got squashed.

1/9/05 - About 56,500 customers continued to lack electricity.  The blackout Sunday included 46,500 customers in the Muncie and Hartford City areas, 4,000 in the Marion and Elwood areas, and 6,000 in the Winchester and Portland areas.   More than 1,500 power company workers in 444 crews are rebuilding the damaged power system and cutting and removing fallen trees.   The extra crews have come from South Carolina, Georgia, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, Michigan and northern Indiana.

In the year that followed:  The radio station management decided to install more backup power generators for the 7 locally-run stations. To better serve the public, a large generator was added at WLBC which can power the whole building automatically.  The next year the Daleville studios of 5 stations WERK / WURK / WHTI / WHTY / WHBU got a whole-building generator.  In 2008, WHTY's Hartford City transmitter site got a generator as well.



posted by Sean Mattingly Sean.Mattingly@woofboom.com