Just before 5pm on Wednesday, the McBride Family-owned CBS affiliate led by GM Joe Schwartzel ceased broadcasts. It had no choice. A rising, raging tidal surge threatened to inundate the entire first floor of Fort Myers Broadcasting Company‘s WINK-TV and several radio stations housed in the facility. With no generator power and a studio that ended up ruined by several feet of floodwaters, staff rushed to the second floor and were eventually rescued at 3am Thursday, as fire and rescue were finally able to reach them while the floodwaters receded.
For a brief time, meteorologist Dylan Federico used social media to continue informing those in Southwest Florida about Ian’s wrath. Then that ended.
Finally, on Saturday afternoon, WINK-TV newscasts were back, albeit in a decidedly emergency fashion and on a different channel. It said a lot about the enormous recovery that lies ahead for Lee County, Fla., and for the company’s broadcast assets.
From a “Broadcast Center” on Palm Beach Blvd., WINK-11 used a first-floor news studio to deliver reports widely consumed across the Fort Myers-Naples-Cape Coral market. Its coverage extends to Punta Gorda and even Sebring, technically within the Tampa Bay DMA.
Normally, the facility is in a picturesque stretch of downtown Fort Myers, facing the Caloosahatchee River and, on the south side of the property, an estuary. On September 28, the location proved to be problematic as floodwaters raced into the parking lot, nearing the front entrance, in a quick and furious manner.
While WINK-TV was impacted, so were radio stations owned by Fort Myers Broadcasting Company: WINK-FM, the longtime Adult Contemporary station in the market; and Spanish-language Latin Contemporary WTLQ-FM.
Additionally, radio stations licensed to Sun Broadcasting are also housed at “Broadcast Center” — top-rated Talker WFSX-FM, Rocker WARO-FM “The Arrow,” Rhythmic Top 40 WFFY “Fly 98.5,” Country WHEL-FM, and two HD2 offerings heard on FM translators across the market.
Just before 11am Monday, WARO’s stream was back up, with Nirvana and Dio heard back-to-back. WFSX’s stream was also in operation; Fly’s stream yielded a Jack Harlow song. Even WTLQ, “Latino 97.7,” was back, with a Pitbull track heard.
The WINK-FM stream was still out of service. However, WINK-TV is using the 100kw radio station as a simulcast partner until further notice. The WINK radio signal reaches far western Palm Beach County, inland communities such as Sebring, and the Suncoast cities of Sarasota and Bradenton.
It also appears that WINK-TV’s newscasts are back on WXCW-46, the Sun Broadcasting-licensed station that also calls “Broadcast Center” its home.
For all intents and purposes, WINK-TV “moved to its transmitter site” in the Babcock Ranch section of Punta Gorda, some 14 miles northeast of “Broadcast Center.”
Meanwhile, social media posts also showed damage to satellites used by The E.W. Scripps Co.-owned FOX affiliate WFTX “FOX 4,” the lone Fort Myers station to remain on the air with local news coverage across the hours when Hurricane Ian tore through the region.
Waterman Broadcasting-owned WBBH “NBC2,” which had been feeding NBC News Now for a brief time at the worst part of the storm, quickly returned to studio newscasts. WBBH is located just a few miles to the south of “Broadcast Center,” but further inland by several blocks.
With Sun’s radio stations offering music to weary residents, as were Beasley Media Group and Renda Broadcasting stations, the iHeartMedia radio stations in Southwest Florida were continuing to simulcast “iHeartMedia Operation Storm Watch,” based at WFLA-AM’s Tampa studios.
How long the temporary efforts for WINK-TV and the iHeartMedia radio stations will continue is unknown, as the recovery efforts will be lengthy and likely require billions of dollars in reconstruction costs.
