Teams at Mix 1049 and Hot 100 in Darwin found that sleeping in the building was surprisingly comfortable as they battened down the hatches last week for Tropical Cyclone Carlos.
Carlos began as a Tropical Low that came up through the Northern Territory and into the broadcast area last Tuesday bringing with it severe thunderstorms, damaging winds and localised flooding.
A Cyclone Watch was declared on Tuesday morning by the BOM and upgraded to a Cyclone warning by Tuesday afternoon. The tropical low made it’s way out to sea then formed into a Category 1 cyclone and headed back towards Darwin and further inland over the Tuesday and Wednesday. Carlos was downgraded to a tropical low again as it moved further inland.
From Tuesday crews at Mix 1049 and Hot 100 began broadcasting live 24 hours – with updates every 10 minutes as well as web updates through mix1049.com.au as soon as new information was released.
You can see pictures of Carlos and destruction in the wake of Carlos on the stations’ facebook site at: http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Mix-1049-Darwin/108502099217538 and listener videos at: www.mix1049.com.au
Some what spooky - I too slept (well hardly) in the same building when it was just a year old - during Cyclone Tracy watching out of the studio window giant wheelie bins at the servo centre behind the station car park fly through the air like cardboard was one of the many shocking things endured during that storm - including being helpless as the transmission site blew away.
I was in Darwin recently, those two radio stations are terrible!!