Planning pays off for New Orleans stations

After Katrina, TV stations in New Orleans invested in infrastructure and communications to prepare for the next hurricane. As Gustav blew through, the investment paid off. “We’ve been rehearsing ever since Katrina,” said WWL GM Bud Brown. “We covered the story. We did remarkably well.” WWLtv.com’s Tom Planchet reminds us that all [...]

Blogging from the hurricane

As Gustav roars on shore, the best blogs to watch are NOLA.com’s staff blog, WWLtv.com’s breaking news blog and the terrific GustavBloggers.com.

Photo from GustavBloggers.com as the hurricane approached.

Top anchors in Louisiana, RNC scales back

As you might expect, the networks have sent their top anchors to Gustav, and the Republican National Convention has significantly scaled back on its first night. “It’s kind of a no-brainer,” Kate O’Brian, ABC’s senior vice president, said of the decision to send Charlie Gibson to New Orleans. “Charlie goes where the big news is…. [...]

Man staying behind streaming Gustav

A man in New Orleans has decided to stay behind and stream the hurricane live via UStream.tv. He’s also blogging and Twittering his experience. “Over 3000 viewers, an ABC interview, 2 missed calls from CNN, and 4 cases of beer,” he explains about his Sunday night.
Update: More live streams here (Thanks, Amanda!)

Poynter debuts Gustav storm tools site

Al Tompkins over at Poynter quickly rolled out this Ning-powered community site that’s aggregating the latest Gustav news, data, links and Twitter posts. One of the best resources on the site is a map that displays the storm surge monitors all around New Orleans.

WWLtv.com’s live audience growing fast

As Hurricane Gustav evacuees reach safety outside New Orleans, WWLtv.com’s live streaming coverage is growing its audience fast. Site manager Tom Planchet says he expects to have served 100,000 streams by the day’s end. “I expect that probably to double Monday and possibly again Tuesday,” he says. WWL’s air signal is being picked [...]

NOLA.com staff staying… for now

A note from NOLA.com Editor Jon Donley: “We’re in the hurricane bunker now, then will pull back if necessary to one of several hardened and generator powered safe sites inside the city. We don’t intend to evacuate unless it becomes life-threatening.” Current screen grab (3 p.m. ET)…

Gustav converges on Republican convention

Updated: Two massive stories are converging on Monday, and the networks are splitting their resources between Hurricane Gustav and the RNC.
Politico.com: Networks scramble to cover two quickly-changing stories
NBC press release: Williams to the Gulf, Brokaw to anchor RNC
NY Times: Bush, Cheney cancel convention speeches for Monday
TVNewser: NBC News making use of its newest [...]

NOLA.com running on all cylinders for Gustav

I remember three years ago looking at the Times-Picayune’s website, NOLA.com, as Katrina moved in. It was not nearly as prepared as it is now.

NOLA.com features a clean layout of up-to-date news, weather maps, storm tracker, video, survival guide, reader advice on over a dozen topics, forums divided out by neighborhood, and a blog [...]

Hurricane tracker debuts on msnbc.com

Our team at msnbc.com did a great job building this interactive hurricane tracker mashed over Virtual Earth, which just debuted on the site in time for Gustav. (Full disclosure: I work there.)

LiveNewsCameras.com’s hurricane map

The LiveNewsCameras folks over at Fox Chicago have launched another new feature: a Google map mashup with links to live streams. They’ve adapted the map to focus on Hurricane Gustav. More on the new feature here.

WWLtv.com traffic already skyrocketing

Even before Hurricane Gustav became a hurricane, WWLtv.com began streaming two “live chats” a day with their meteorologists. They take reader questions and then illustrate the answers in a live video stream, drawing on weather maps. “The live chats have been getting between 3,000 to 6,000 simultaneous views,” explains WWLtv.com’s Tom Planchet on [...]

Gearing up for Gustav, here we go again?

The local media in New Orleans are preparing for the worst again, as Gustav takes aim for the Gulf Coast. “We are going to be much better prepared than we were three years ago,” said Peter Kovacs, managing editor of the Times Picayune. “Our mistake three years ago was a reliance on operating from [...]