HURRICANE BOB

By Norm Dvoskin

The first thing people ask after a hurricane is, "If a tree falls in your backyard and there’s nobody there to hear it, who’s responsible for getting rid of it?"

On Monday August 19, 1991, the eye of hurricane Bob passed over Montauk with winds of over 100 mph and more than seven inches of rain. On the East End after the storm, downed trees and power lines lay across roads and driveways, "tossed together like so much salad," (quoted from The New York Times of Wednesday August 21, 1991). I drove to East Hampton a few days after the storm and it was a mess. Driving was difficult along Montauk Highway because of the abundance of fallen trees, branches and other debris scattered across the roads. On Western Long Island, most people had no idea of the extent of the damage.

This hurricane has special significance. It’s the only full blown hurricane to strike Long Island covered by News 12. We started broadcasting December 1986. Hurricane Gloria struck us in September 1985 before our inception. Since Bob, there have been numerous near misses, remnants of once powerful tropical storms and hurricanes, but no fully developed storms have hit us.

Sunday night and early on Monday the 19^th, before the storm reached us, I was in the news room, doing live up-dates, describing the progress of the storm as it worked its way up the East Coast. Here’s how it worked. Every hour, on-the-hour, I had to fill one minute and 49 seconds of time. I would say something like, "Hurricane Bob is moving up the coast with winds of 120 miles an hour... blah, blah, blah." The next hour I said, "Hurricane Bob is moving up the coast with winds of 120 miles per hour ..yadda, yadda, yadda." I gave the storms intensity, speed and location while a satellite video of the storm played on screen. I did this until 4 A.M. Monday, until I was relieved by meteorologist Joe Cioffi. I was sitting on a chair looking into a camera wearing an ear piece, getting time cues. The only other person in the news room was Kim the assignment editor. About one minute before one of the segments she yelled out, "There’s important news. You have to read this!" She handed me a sheet of paper just off the wire. I proceeded to read, "There’s a coup taking place in the Soviet Union. Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev was under house arrest while he was vacationing in the Crimea. Tanks and other military vehicles were patrolling the streets of the Capital and martial law was declared"......and by the way, Hurricane Bob is moving up the coast with winds of 120 miles an hour..yakity, yakity, yak". News 12 was probably the first station in the country to provide the breaking news of this event.

Hurricane Bob could have been a lot worse. If the center of the storm hit Long Island about 20 to 50 miles further west it would have been a major disaster. We would likely have had more destruction than the legendary hurricane of 1938.

One more aside--I’ve also worked the nights prior to Hurricanes Andrew and Katrina, which impacted Florida and Louisiana respectively. So if you see me on TV during August and September, you’d better duck.

Comments

[Lori Hofmann]

Hello Norm!! My name is Lori and I am a huge fan of News 12 especially you. Unfortunately, recently my fiance got direct TV for the football package. Every night before we went to sleep we always waited for your weather report, because it always made us smile. We always love your jokes with your play on words on the weather forcast. Regardless, if the weather predictions for that day/week were positive or negative. I just want to thank you for being you, and making my fiance and I smile. I cannot wait to get Cabelvision BACK!!

[Jack]

Interesting story, Norm! You must have felt like Jim McKay reporting on the hostages during the '72 Olympics when that Gorbachev coup wire came down!
I was in Italy when Gloria hit in '85. The hotel desk clerk called us over and in broken English said "You from New York? BIG Hurricane -- Everybody die!"
Back then we couldn't get through on the phones. I knew *some* Italian and we were watching news reports in Italian but I was straining to understand them.
Turned out the LILCO Chairman- William Catacosinos -- was in Italy too at the time.
He decided not to cut his vacation short and stayed there, and boy did he get heat when he got back! We didn't come back early either. We finally reached my brother and he took care of the house for us.