BY PAUL DERIENZO | The waters were rising more quickly than anyone expected on Mon., Oct. 29, as half a dozen staffers at New York’s iconoclastic radio station WBAI watched nervously from their 10th-floor offices at 120 Wall St. just a few feet from the raging waters of the East River.
Engineer Tony Ryan was there and said he was making bets on how high the sea would eventually rise as the “water started pouring over South St. and down Wall St.,” eventually, according to Ryan, up to the “second floor” of most of the buildings along Wall heading west into the darkness beyond Front St.
Ken Gale, an engineer who is also host of “Eco-Logic,” an environmental program on WBAI, said the water seemed to come at least as high as the traffic light across the street. New York City traffic signals sit about 15 feet above the roadway.
Eventually, Ryan said, “The water rose nearly to the level of the F.D.R. Drive,” which passes over South St. He also noticed bright flashes of light he thought were caused by lightning but later learned were exploding transformers.
A few hundred yards south of Wall St. is a usually busy heliport visible from-the windows of WBAI’s offices, which face east and south over the East River to Brooklyn and southward to the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge.-Within moments, as the daylight faded, Ryan said, the red lights of the heliport disappeared and the T-shaped landing pad looked like “it was a sandbar.” He added that, as a station engineer, he was in touch with Con Edison, which shut down the electricity in WBAI’s building and surrounding area “all of a sudden and with no warning” as the water quickly rose. Ryan said the power company originally planned a controlled shutdown to allow auxiliary power systems to take over, but he said, in the end, Con Ed “was taken by surprise.”
Gale said he was at WBAI for-62 hours straight after arriving for his usual 6 a.m. shift on Sun., Oct. 28.
“There was a little bit of food,” he said, “but not good food.” He said among the holdouts who braved the storm were news reporter Rebecca Myles, program director Chris Hatzis and chief engineer Graceon Challenger. According to Gale, they couldn’t leave the building or they wouldn’t be allowed to return. With the subways down and the only alternative walking home, he decided to stay. Gale was struck by the surge’s briefness; he said that by 2 a.m. Tuesday the water “left with the tide,” adding that the spectacle was “amazing.”
As the mayhem progressed on Wall St., Michael G. Haskins, WBAI’s chief announcer, tried to keep up the station’s programming from his apartment in Harlem. When power to the station was cut at about 6:30 p.m. Monday, Haskins used a device he called a Comrex that allowed him to broadcast using a laptop and a microphone from his home through WBAI’s transmitter at the Empire State Building. His broadcast, helped by a CD player, continued until about 2 a.m., when his line to the Empire State suddenly failed. Haskins said his wife, also a reporter, was supportive despite the disruption, but he added that she did ask “how long” the station would be broadcasting from their home.
Over the next days Haskins got a reprieve thanks to Gary Null, one of WBAI’s most influential programmers. The world-famous health guru lent the station his broadcast studios at the Progressive Radio Network, where he hosts a variety of self-help and political commentary programs. Using a former supply closet-turned-studio, WBAI broadcast with a skeleton crew of Haskins, Hatzis and whichever programmers could get into the city. WBAI’s eclectic lineup of talented but famously petulant producers “came through,” Ryan said, “with e-mailed content to enrich the broadcast air.”
The Thursday afternoon following Hurricane Sandy, producer Hugh Hamilton arrived for his weekly “Throwdown Thursday,” an anything-goes, live, call-in in program. Hamilton, who has a Caribbean accent and a reasoned, on-air style, fielded calls from New Yorkers enraged by Mayor Bloomberg’s hasty decision – later reversed – to run the New York Marathon while the city remained fragile with thousands still living under blackout.
Hamilton calmly listened to-a distraught caller, offering her quiet words of encouragement as she vented. It’s in these moments which bring New Yorkers together – as occurred after 9/11 – that WBAI comes close to realizing its potential. Today the station can play the same role as an independent voice for the victims of Sandy.
DeRienzo is an occasional unpaid contributor to WBAI and Pacifica radio. He co-hosts “Let Them Talk,” Tuesdays at 8 p.m., on Manhattan Neighborhood Network’s Lifestyle Channel.
