Bryan Norcross (Part 2)
Hurricane Specialist, The Weather Channel

On Saturday, things started to move quickly. Not only did Andrew become a hurricane, it soon had an eye and was picking up forward speed. Remember, there was no Internet then, so we did all of our communicating by telephone. I raced into the TV station and went on the air at 11 am. We did hour-long blocks of unscheduled programming doing nothing but answering questions from people calling on a special phone line. A Hurricane Watch was issued for the southern half of the east coast of Florida at 5 pm.

By the 11 pm newscast that Saturday night, Andrew was a Category 3 hurricane with 125-mph winds and strengthening. It was getting scary, and we could have stayed on all night. But at 1 am we decided it was time to wrap up the newscast and get ready for whatever was to come.

At the end of the program, I said, “I’m going to go home now and get some sleep and I suggest you do, too. Tomorrow is going to be a very big day in our city and I’m not sure if we’re going to sleep tomorrow night.”

Tomorrow, FLASH Project Manager Trenise Lyons shares her personal story of Andrew and how communication has changed in that last 20 years since the storm…