Tuesday, 4/11

That was fun. Let's try not to do it again any time soon.

First of all, apologies for the few lines I wrote yesterday. Unfortunately, that's all I had time for, even considering I was at work before 4 am trying to deal with all the weather-related damage done to power lines and transmitters and stuff. As I write this, we're actually on the air, a minor miracle considering large portions of the city of Ishpeming still do not have power. However, thanks to a backup transmitter and a borrowed generator we are on the air. Sure, we're only at 1,700 watts (as opposed to the usual 100,000), but we're on the air.  And we should be back to normal within minutes.

And that's the important thing.

I'm sure those of you who live in the area have seen the pictures of what the storm did to Ishpeming overnight yesterday, but in case you're one of the people from outside the U.P. who checks on this--

That picture is courtesy of Holly Letson on Facebook, and is just one of many you can find floating around social media. When the storm came through Marquette around 3:30 yesterday morning the lightning woke me up; I had no idea that just a few miles away from where I was that the winds were twice as strong as they were in the city and that hail was falling everywhere.

Yikes!

Then, as I tried to explain yesterday, with all the outages it was just trying to figure out when all of our stations could go back on the air. Luckily, our studios in Marquette weren't affected, and our ESPN station came back on around 730. Then, it was just waiting for our Q107 transmitter to get power, and when we found out it wouldn't be getting any power for a (long) while, we went to Plan B.

Luckily, we had a Plan B. I know there were a whole lot of people who were stuck without energy on an increasingly chilly day. But I also know that people from all across Marquette County reached out and offered everything from hot food to hot showers to a warm place to stay. I know I've said it several thousand times before, and I'm pretty sure I'll say it several thousand times again, but the best people on the planet really do live here in the U.P.

And no, you may not argue with that statement.

So once again, apologies for not writing a lot yesterday. I wish I could blame it on a case of the Mondays, but alas, the blame must fall squarely on the shoulders of my pal Mother Nature. Apparently, she still hasn't gotten it out of her system, what with the five inches (and counting) of wet, heavy snow that's fallen this morning.  Yup...70 & sunny on Sunday, thunderstorms yesterday, and snow storms today.  Welcome to our new reality, I guess.  But, let's just hope she's finished working through whatever issues she's working through, and that she's makes it up to us with some nice weather in the next few weeks.

You guys agree with me?

8-)

(jim@wmqt.com)