ABC-7’s Complete Coverage Of Storm 2006 Garners 3 Awards

The Radio-Television News Directors Association honors ABC-7 with its highest award for excellence twice.

ABC-7 is the only local station to win not only one, but two Edward R. Murrow awards in the 2007 RTNDA regional contest.

ABC-7 won for spot news coverage which represents an unscheduled breaking news event; the initial downpour of August 1st, 2006. ABC-7 also won for Continuing Coverage which represents coverage of a major developing story over an extended period of time.

ABC-7 also won first place in Continuing Coverage in the Texas Associated Press-Broadcasters 2007 contest.

On the morning of August 1st, 2006 a powerful storm system moved into the El Paso / Las Cruces area dumping heavy amounts of rain.

During the month of August, El Paso normally receives less than 2 inches of rain; this day parts of El Paso would get hit with about seven inches of rain. In the first few hours it became apparent this would be a storm of significant proportion.

ABC-7 reporters were in more places around town covering significantly more angles than the competition. Our reporter-photographer teams jumped from one part of town to the next filing reports as fast as they could break down and establish a new signal.

More people in the El Paso / Las Cruces area got their severe weather coverage from ABC-7.

ABC-7 was the only station with 13 initial hours of continuous-over-the-air commercial-free coverage. ABC-7 provided a live simulcast of our coverage through our website reaching people far beyond our viewing area.

ABC-7 also simulcast live on the radio with our radio news partner AM600. Several other radio stations also relied on our news reports. Later, we would learn pediatric transports teams were using our coverage to direct their ambulances.

El Paso’s Office of Emergency Management was watching ABC-7 to make critical decisions. ABC-7 was the only station that could keep someone informed at any point as they moved from their television, to their car radio, their home computer, or their mobile device. And that was day one.

Two Days later, new rain storms. And a day after that: new storms hit. It would go on like this for three weeks. Each new storm brought a renewed sense of danger, threatening infrastructure that was already compromised.

In summary: An unprecedented weather event was met with a massive team effort all in an attempt to bring forward critical information to an audience that desperately needed it to make important decisions about their safety.