Share

Live snow storm stream from my couch for 10 hours after WSPA Tower collapse

10 hours of snow storm streaming from my couch.  That wasn’t really the plan. 

I wanted to go to work and anchor, but could not.  No sitter and my husband was traveling.  So I thought I’d contribute to our storm coverage online and planned to stream live from 5 to 7 pm and again from 10 to midnight. 

And then thousands of you showed up!  And the developments and questions kept coming.

You had important questions, that had to be answered.

And you helped me break two big developments -  a passenger on a plane at GSP let me know on twitter, that the airport was a mess. Flights were cancelling. They ran out of de-icer!

And a truck driver stuck on Interstate 85 near Cherokee County - tipped me off to the massive numbers of drivers running out of gas and patience on I-85.  He used his cellphone to join my live streaming blog - watching my webcast and typing in all the details that helped us warn you of the danger first - and stay on top of this part of the story.

Then the relatives started showing up in the live stream.  Mothers who’d spent four hours on the phone with their children stuck in the 85 mess.  The gas almost gone.  The cell phones dead.  And no still at 2 am, no response to help them.  By this morning traffic had backed up 30 miles.

I could not stop streaming.

So, I wound up doing the longest anchoring stint of my 21 year broadcasting career.  10 hours streaming live from my couch, my kitchen, my porch and more.  2 and a half hours from my porch as the snow started falling go to 138 08 on this clip http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/1202748

And so many of you helped me, sharing information, helping each other, pasting in great links to new information and more.  Steven PItts a friend from Twitter, helped by approving the comments for me, while I cooked dinner for my children, and continued to update you.

There was more drama, personal drama.  My husband flew in from Charlotte just after 8 and was trying to drive home.  He wound up stopped by trees and in a ditch.  But he made it.  At 3am.
This is what his car looked like!

That of course, meant my girls were left to entertain themselves for 10 hours.  They only had a few momentary distractions where they jumped into the livestream http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/1202748 .

This is just a small portion of the result! 

Messes everywhere that I’ll be picking up for the next week!  Gracie didn’t have anyone there, to remind her to “pick up before you take something else out!”

I am so thankful for the 3,500 comments you shared with me.  It was all critical information that helped us cover the snow storm. 

During the stream I shared shots of snow at my house.  Click on this link and forward it to 5 minutes 50 seconds in.  http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/1203770

After all that work, we had some fun in the snow today.  Hope you did too. 

You can find all my links to Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, YouTube and more on http://theribbit.com