Several commercial radio stations in Louisiana are still off the air nearly a week after Hurricane Francine impacted the region.
The storm made landfall as a Category 2 hurricane last Wednesday, causing power disruptions that made it difficult or impossible for some radio broadcasters to maintain their on-air operations.
At least five radio stations were off the air as of Saturday, including KJIN (1490 AM), KCIL (96.7 FM) and KDLC (97.7 FM), according to disaster-related reports compiled by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and reviewed by The Desk on Monday.
No broadcast television stations are off the air because of the storm, the FCC reported, and the majority of cell phone towers that were impacted by the hurricane have since been reactivated.
Broadcast advocates typically tout the resiliency of radio stations in keeping communities connected during natural disasters and other emergencies.
“The linkage between the local officials and the local radio stations is critical; it’s the one thing that we know that will survive a lot of these disasters,” former Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Craig Fugate said in a 2022 interview.
That notion has played a starring role in touting radio’s outsized importance at a time when some car manufacturers are weighing whether to abandon AM radio tuners in their vehicles in favor of more-connected entertainment and information options, and as lawmakers battle against the idea by threatening to impose a mandate that would make those tuners a standard safety feature in all cars.
“FEMA officials — in both Democratic and Republican administrations — have hailed broadcast radio as the most dependable communication medium during an emergency,” Senator Ed Markey wrote in a letter to several car manufacturers in December 2022.
The situation with Hurricane Francine proves that radio broadcasters are no less susceptible to the impacts of severe weather as other forms of electronic communication.
