Chapter 1: Radio as Lightning Rod

Lightning Strikes Twice

September 2024

Though extreme weather events had been noticeably on the rise in Bloomington in 2024, as they were globally, there was something particularly unlikely about the circumstances of the September 20 storm. It was, firstly, the last Friday of that year’s WFHB fall fund drive. The station was significantly behind its $35,000 10-day goal going into that final weekend, with a lot of ground to make up before the end of the drive on Sunday night. The last-minute fund drive push is certainly not uncharted territory for the station, but this time, it seemed the aim might be out of reach.

Scheduled for the 9 to 11 p.m. slot that night, as usual, was Louisianian music show Crawfish Fiesta with host Crawfish Chet. This combination had been part of the WFHB lineup from its earliest days; Chet was as veteran a host as the station had, having been one of the crew to migrate from WQAX after its closure. It seemed a safe bet that the night would go smoothly, even if we were still behind on donations.

My partner, general manager Jar Turner, was taking a much-needed break from being physically present at the station that night while development director Brooke Turpin stayed onsite as a staff resource for Chet and other evening programmers. At home, we watched Feast Your Ears: The Story of WHFS 102.3 FM at the recommendation of station founder and former music director Jim Manion. Some minutes in, we heard a few window-rattling gusts of air and particularly loud peals of thunder. Intense but brief, it seemed unremarkable at first; after all, it had been less than three months since the supercell storm that had left thousands of Bloomington residents (and many others) without power for days on end. At 9:30, though, I looked at my phone to see a text message from Brooke:

I need Jar to call me now

When he went to do so, he found that he had several missed calls from her, and urgent ones: we were totally off the air.

As far as Brooke could tell, the station had taken a direct electrical hit.[1] While no one at the station was injured, much of our essential equipment was nonfunctional. We could not transmit over the air or the internet. Our station WiFi connection and our phones were down. The bulk of the storm had subsided, but Bloomington was still under a torrential downpour. There was no way for anyone with engineering expertise to safely go downtown to assess the damage that night. That night, staff posted a bright red square with black letters reading “WFHB IS OFF THE AIR” to the station’s official social media channels, garnering significantly more engagement from followers than most of its posts.

A team of staff and volunteers arrived at the station early the next morning to find that the situation was, indeed, dire. There was more blown circuitry than we initially thought, and our main control board would need professional repairs. By the end of the day, we were on the air with major workarounds, cobbling together a path from air room to airwaves made up of older pieces of technology. There were limitations in terms of how many different types of media we could use while also using our small stopgap board and new procedures for programmers to learn. It was hectic.

Despite or perhaps because of this chaos, the drive continued with renewed energy. The local Switchyard House Show Venue, from which we had planned to broadcast a live event that night before the storm made it impossible, donated a portion of merchandise profits to the station. Longtime affiliates of the station activated their networks as never before, reaching out to family members, friends, colleagues, and even whole neighborhoods to let them know what was happening at WFHB and why they should donate. It worked. Every show that Sunday met its individual goal. All told, the station raised over $45,000 that fall, with a record number of new donors joining the fold. Much of it came after the lightning strike. Amid acute disaster, the station’s social network activated, the goodwill intertwined with its cultural capital generating the necessary economic capital to sustain it.

Figure 1.4: Landline phones irreparably damaged by the lightning strike sit in the WFHB lobby in October 2024.

[1] Five or so blocks west of the station, Jim Manion had started a handheld audio recorder when the storm first started picking up, and in so doing captured the sound of the thunder accompanying the strike that damaged the station. Audio is embedded in companion webpage.