FEBRUARY 19, 2015
WORCESTER,
MASSACHUSETTS
Anyone hoping to
listen to Sam Smith, ZZ Top or Miranda Lambert on their favorite
Worcester-based radio stations Thursday morning heard nothing but dead air,
thanks to a burst water pipe that sent morning show hosts — and others in the
building — "running for their lives."
Employees of businesses inside 250 Commercial St. — including Cumulus Radio stations 100 FM The Pike, 98.9 Nash Icon and 104.5 WXLO — initially thought the roof of the several-story brick building had collapsed.
However, it was a burst 6-inch water pipe that sent water cascading through the building, sending ceiling tiles and debris crashing into a vacant first-floor storefront and turning a glass-enclosed staircase into an aquarium.
The radio stations were knocked off the air.
Bruce Palmer was on air around 8:35 a.m. when he heard a thundering crash — a commotion loud enough to penetrate his soundproof studio.
"Someone looked outside the studio and saw ankle-deep water running down the hallway. We grabbed what we could and ran out of the building," Mr. Palmer said. "We are in soundproof rooms, and if you can hear something like thunder in that soundproof room, you know it's big."
The stations have automated systems, but with the power to the building having to be shut off, those systems could not work and all that was heard on the airwaves was dead air.
The Pike returned to the air around 12:30 p.m. All three stations were back on the air by 1:30 p.m.
Bob Goodell, vice president and market manager, said early Thursday afternoon he was planning to bring in generators to the building and run cords to the fifth and sixth floors to power up the stations.
However, Mr. Goodell said, the WXLO studio was heavily damaged and "is probably a loss," while The Pike and Nash Icon studios had minimal damage.
"It took out the 'XLO studio. It's gone. But we saved the other two studios and we got a couple of production studios that we can keep 'XLO on the air until we rebuild the studio," Mr. Goodell said.
The engineering room, which serves all the radio stations is located on the sixth floor, was untouched.
"The heart of who we are — from a technical standpoint and a people standpoint — was not harmed, and we are all safe," Mr. Goodell said. "We are in a situation we can fix. It's just a matter of what we do in the short term."
On Friday, WXLO's popular morning show will be a prerecorded "best of" broadcast. Monday the show will be back live, broadcasting from a makeshift studio.
"We got a lot of cleanup. It's a pretty messy thing," Mr. Goodell said. "The good part of it is, we're going to have to build a brand-new studio for 'XLO."
Deputy Fire Chief Geoffrey Gardell said the Fire Department remained at the building throughout the afternoon. He said the building's owners would have to hire a 24/7 private fire watch because the sprinkler system was not in working order and the building was unprotected.
"The building is shut down," Chief Gardell said, but he said the stations could run if they had an outside power source.
The broken 6-inch sprinkler riser, which the chief said was "frozen solid," gave way near the top floor of the building. Power inside the building was shut off and the chief electrical inspector was called in as water invaded the building's electrical system.
Employees of businesses inside 250 Commercial St. — including Cumulus Radio stations 100 FM The Pike, 98.9 Nash Icon and 104.5 WXLO — initially thought the roof of the several-story brick building had collapsed.
However, it was a burst 6-inch water pipe that sent water cascading through the building, sending ceiling tiles and debris crashing into a vacant first-floor storefront and turning a glass-enclosed staircase into an aquarium.
The radio stations were knocked off the air.
Bruce Palmer was on air around 8:35 a.m. when he heard a thundering crash — a commotion loud enough to penetrate his soundproof studio.
"Someone looked outside the studio and saw ankle-deep water running down the hallway. We grabbed what we could and ran out of the building," Mr. Palmer said. "We are in soundproof rooms, and if you can hear something like thunder in that soundproof room, you know it's big."
The stations have automated systems, but with the power to the building having to be shut off, those systems could not work and all that was heard on the airwaves was dead air.
The Pike returned to the air around 12:30 p.m. All three stations were back on the air by 1:30 p.m.
Bob Goodell, vice president and market manager, said early Thursday afternoon he was planning to bring in generators to the building and run cords to the fifth and sixth floors to power up the stations.
However, Mr. Goodell said, the WXLO studio was heavily damaged and "is probably a loss," while The Pike and Nash Icon studios had minimal damage.
"It took out the 'XLO studio. It's gone. But we saved the other two studios and we got a couple of production studios that we can keep 'XLO on the air until we rebuild the studio," Mr. Goodell said.
The engineering room, which serves all the radio stations is located on the sixth floor, was untouched.
"The heart of who we are — from a technical standpoint and a people standpoint — was not harmed, and we are all safe," Mr. Goodell said. "We are in a situation we can fix. It's just a matter of what we do in the short term."
On Friday, WXLO's popular morning show will be a prerecorded "best of" broadcast. Monday the show will be back live, broadcasting from a makeshift studio.
"We got a lot of cleanup. It's a pretty messy thing," Mr. Goodell said. "The good part of it is, we're going to have to build a brand-new studio for 'XLO."
Deputy Fire Chief Geoffrey Gardell said the Fire Department remained at the building throughout the afternoon. He said the building's owners would have to hire a 24/7 private fire watch because the sprinkler system was not in working order and the building was unprotected.
"The building is shut down," Chief Gardell said, but he said the stations could run if they had an outside power source.
The broken 6-inch sprinkler riser, which the chief said was "frozen solid," gave way near the top floor of the building. Power inside the building was shut off and the chief electrical inspector was called in as water invaded the building's electrical system.