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Since 1993
California Wildfires Leave One Familiar Lifeline: Radio.
More than a dozen wildfires are decimating parts of Northern California, and the reports continued to escalate through Tuesday. The so-called “Tubbs Fire” is focused in Napa and Sonoma Counties, where two local broadcasters, describing the scene to Inside Radio, strike a hauntingly familiar chord, given the recent hurricanes that devastated parts of Houston, Florida and Puerto Rico.
Over 119,000 acres had been scorched, with winds as high as 79 mph, while more than 1,500 homes and businesses have been destroyed.
“We’ve never seen anything like this. I’ve seen some fires in this area, but this is largest natural disaster I have ever seen in this county,” says Tom Skinner, VP/GM of Santa Rosa, CA-based Redwood Empire Stereocasters. “I personally know 10 people who have lost their homes and if I do, so does everybody else. The fires just sort of landed everywhere and the air here is just as thick as it can be with smoke.”
Internet and WiFi are not operating across much of the region, including Napa, home to radio company Wine Down Media’s two-station cluster. Larry Sharp, the company’s GM and PD, offers a statement that has become all too common over the past couple of months of natural disaster coverage: “Cellphones and WiFi are down, so people are depending on good old-fashioned radio for this information,” he tells Inside Radio. “A large portion of this county has Comcast and they are down so there is no TV, then no internet…and that pretty much leaves radio.”
