On August 10th, I saw a goal of mine come to life; I was working again for a much respected employer in my eyes. The Gentleman, Scott Hennen purchased 2 stations with his group of investors, and built a shot at living his dream of owning a successful talk station, as of this writing, today I am still proud to say I was a part of the launch team of WZFG-AM 1100 in Fargo, ND.
Well... The new signal in the Fargo/Moorhead market had it's bumps and glitches just within minutes of going to day time power and launching the new 50kw powerhouse. The daytime tower was struck by lightning damaging the transmission cable and a few other items during the most defining moment, during an interview with then presidential candidate and U.S. Senator John McCain.
Our Consulting engineers Jim Offerdahl, & Mark Borchert had made repairs to keep the signal on the air at 5kw with a very poor signal due to the damage to the transmitter and transmission line which had actually burned. All the repairs to the transmitter were back at 100% within a few days, but still the studios and control rooms were at about 35-40% completion, running on the bare minimum of equipment. 
By October we had the studios up to 100% and the on air chain stable with all the staff well comfortable in a new state-of-the-art radio broadcast facility. I will admit the station was well staffed by some of the best support, and sales minds that could be brought in, and a really good management staff with a full-time programming staff that was known for thinking "outside the box".
Although the building was small and located in a very historical location, if you had ever been to Fargo, in it's taverns, and/or frequented downtown Fargo, the studios at 64 Broadway were once the home of Jim Lauerman's pub, home to Fargo's best sandwiches, chili, pickled eggs, and social chatter on a middle income level.
So this location even meant something special to me.
In Fargo we had a really wet fall and record snowfall during that winter in some areas especially to the south and west. In case people are not aware of the geography of North Dakota, The Red River of the north (as there is one in Texas) flows from just south of the South Dakota/North Dakota border north to Lake Winnipeg on the east side of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.
In March I had been ill and couldn't shake a virus so in February I scheduled 10 days off 5 of it was PTO, I had to do it a month in advance to insure that the part-timers, and management had time to plan on covering. I spent my winter from just before Christmas to early February ice fishing at a nearby lake every opportunity I could get. I did catch a lot of fish. I am the type who knows how important it is to be prepared for the unexpected. I outfitted my vehicles with winter survival kits and provisions in case I got stranded in the ice house on the lake 45 minutes from home if the weather turned bad. As we had almost a week of 30 below ambient temperatures, and my vehicles started every day without having to plug the engine heater in.
I worked the overnights, so I had my routine down so I had an hour or two of "slack" time when the morning show had their stuff, and all my production had been done including editing the automation for the morning show so both stations were in sync. The morning show was simulcast from the KEGK-FM control room across the hall. In early March, I saw a new flood forecast about 2 weeks before the Red River started to rise, and discussed it with our CE Jim Offerdahl, who just so happens to also be a mayor of a small Minnesota town. Jim owns Offerdahl Broadcast Engineering and is one of the most analytical but grounded engineers I have had a chance to work with. I mentioned that our AM transmitter site had a good chance of being flooded because of the predicted crest of another nearby river (The Buffalo River) and with the predicted flood stages and the elevations it not only put our site at risk, it also put 4 other stations at risk.
Our site was located about 22 nautical miles South East of our studios so it was a good STL throw away but the remote control was via cellular phone, and at times it was unpredictable and frustrating to me as a technical operator when it came time to take readings, and manually re-start the transmitter when there was an issue. It was done that way to save money because installing phone lines would have cost a fortune. The big compromise was the quality, and the ability to sometimes get accurate readings.
The week that the market went into emergency mode another station across town was already in flood mode on that Monday, I was rather frustrated to the fact why we had no plan in place in programming to do updates or anything. I started to do overnight 2 and 3 minute updates and announcements without approval due to the fact there was no paid commercial content to move.
Friday was hell day, I rolled in at 6 pm Tom Bushy was on the board. (2 hours before my usual time I come in) Scott Hennen (the owner) came in sat down in the host's position, had Dustin Moore, Jim Offerdahl, and the whole management team call in every staff member that they could find. The EAS made the flood warning announcement earlier in the evening, and we carried the live declaration from the Mayor off the city cable channel, and it was at that point Jim Offerdahl contacted WTAM-AM in Cleveland (also on 1100 am) with a discussion about the emergency status, and letting them know that we were now operating under part 73.1250 with our full non-directional daytime power. All the Commercials were pulled for the next 10 days. The Flag (WZFG) was in emergency mode broadcasting at 50kw non directional. We had simulcast with our FM sister for 2 days, and later with Lisbon, ND stations KQLX-AM & FM which are now part of the SMAHH communications group.
For the next 3 nights we got calls from Alabama, Saskatchewan, Florida, New York, Ohio, Texas, Colorado, Kansas, & Kentucky amongst others in regards to picking up our flood coverage instead the listeners getting to listen to George Noory on WTAM-AM.
I was on the console in master control and on the phones screening from 12 midnight to 6 am instead of my usual 9pm-5am as they wanted a fresh rotation of air staff and technical operators. The breaks in programming consisted of taped interviews with safety info, flood based FEMA information and PSA's of who to call to help sandbag, or help fill sandbags.
The air staff was loaded with a combination of air staff, hosts & celebrities as guest hosts, and the interviews were a combination of call in’s by public officials, & live interviews utilizing Comrex IP based remote equipment.
Day 4, We had reduced the night time power to 25kw ND and with the metro completely shut down, all businesses closed except those who were preparing food or supplying provisions to those who were working the flood, I went out on the eve of the announcement and I did my part with the station knowing that it could be a month before things even get normal again, I went out and bought $300.00 in groceries, liquids, bottled water, & food for both myself and the station as the first night if it wasn't for what I brought in and what we were able to purchase from our clients & those businesses that were actually open, it would have been a long 10 days.
Day 5, a day of reprieve... The dike along the Red River was set to 41 feet with sand bags, the mayor orders a day of rest... with the National Guard filling the need of dike patches, and security. We fully knew a blizzard was coming in the next 48 hours and plans were being made to assure that the proper staff was in place to keep us on the air as out at the transmitter the water was within 3 feet in elevation of the base of the site. If the flood water got the base of the site (or towers) let's say with 100 Kilo volts of power in the underground power lines and a transmitter operating at 50kw daytime and now 25kw at night it would have been very, very bad. We reduced to essential staff so everyone could get some well needed rest.
Day 6 - Here we go again.. the Red is on the way back up with a 42.5 foot predicted crest and a transmitter site that was a foot and a half above that. I called the station at 2 pm and I thought Jim Offerdahl (our CE) was joking with me about camping out at the transmitter. He knew My vehicle and I were set up for camping out in in the cold weather in survival mode, and knows I have slept out at a few transmitter sites in my 20 years in radio. Well he wasn't, Scott (the station owner) came out of his office and down to the studio level of the building and on first sight of me said "There's my hero!" I thought to myself, what did I do now? Needless to assume anything I was asked to volunteer to camp out with a generator at the transmitter for the duration.
It was really starting to snow and we were expecting a blizzard, so I had to get what food and liquids I could take from the station and get out there, as we already had 2 inches of snow on the ground, with the county roads to the transmitter very soft and muddy I put my Explorer in all wheel drive and didn't try to go any faster than 30 with the snow drifts on the road. I was also looking in the ditches and the fields which were already flooded; it really sunk in how close this place was to going under the flood water.
I settled in after being given the once over on changing the power, I didn't have to worry so much about night pattern as we were waiting on a new phasor to complete our Construction Permit and go to 24kw during critical hours anyway, and 25kw was close to our level when the directional upgrade is completed, so it seemed acceptable.
The first night, I really was trying to get comfortable but did sleep on the floor and didn't feel like dragging in all the survival gear and camping cot, as the place really needed a cleaning and had no running water. Thank goodness for the fishing bucket. It was something I used in the ice house to go to the restroom in with a trash bag liner as the wind chill was pushing 15 below and we had 6" of snow by sunset with 25 mph winds and near zero visibility. Something in the back of my mind kept on bugging me about having the possibility of needing the 50kw diesel generator parked outside the front door to the building.
Day 7: I used the time to nap, and monitor the transmitter as the 2nd phase would tend to drift low. I wasn't feeling so hot anyway, so resting was in order.
Days 8 & 9: I powered up at the right time to 50kw, went to call the studio so they knew they were at full power, the cell connection to the Burk telemetry was dead, so I called from my personal cell, and informed the operations director that we had no cell at the site. 6 hours later it was back up, apparently a problem that wasn't mine. I unloaded my truck, cleaned the building, and set up camp properly with my cot and provisions. I wasn't feeling too well either that day and developing flu of some sort and running a fever all day.
I could guarantee one thing; I was ready for just about anything but a nuclear blast at the site. I cleaned up the bench, stocked shelves with provisions that could be left behind like toilet paper and a survival kit from items I had accumulated from building my winter kit in case someone had to sit there for a while. That night it was 2 day old pizza, Tylenol, and sports drink mixed with bottled water.
A week later I took my 10 days scheduled off and returned to a reduced state due to the fact that the 10 days of broadcasting under Part 73.1250 had compromised income for the station plus running the transmitter at full & half power for 10 days, and staff salaries plus hourly wages took a huge bite out of the station's war chest.
I finally resigned 2 weeks after returning from my time off, feeling traumatized by having to protect my home, work, and doing my duty to keep others informed during a natural disaster, and worrying about "what if" besides the worry of paying my rent after taking a not so voluntary cut in hours and pay.
Would I do it again?
If I had to, next time I would have the transmitter site set up in advance so I didn't have to bring so much stuff, and a good amount of money set aside in case the same happened again.
