Great work this past weekend throughout Florida and the Carolinas covering Hurricance Charley, and in particular from partners The Orlando Sentinel and WESH in the Orlando area, where the storm hit hard. Here’s a look at their coverage…
Great work this past weekend throughout Florida and the Carolinas covering Hurricance Charley, and in particular from partners The Orlando Sentinel and WESH in the Orlando area, where the storm hit hard.
As part of their partnership, the two jointly produce OrlandoWeather.com, which pulled in the best of both sites during the storm: stories and tips from The Orlando Sentinel and video from WESH.
OrlandoWeather.com collected reader photos and published a reader photo gallery.
Perhaps the coolest feature on the site was an excellent storm tracker which used animation to show the storm’s path and was continually updated throughout the storm, even down to details like changing wind speed at various locations.
Among the video you could find on OrlandoWeather.com on demand were tree removal tips and information about the search for victims.
But even more impressive, WESH NewsChannel 2 simulcast its newscasts on WESH.com and OrlandoWeather.com (and, as an NBC affiliate, at times on MSNBC.com). As the site points out, because many residents were without power or cable service, the Webcast may make it possible for more viewers to continue to get important information on the storm (at least those who still have Internet access).
Meanwhile, over on OrlandoSentinel.com, readers could get the latest storm details in a Web log posted during the 24 hours the hurricane swept through the area.
OrlandoSentinel.com also opened up county-by-county discussions on its message boards. Since registration is required for the message boards, the site put up a simpler message board for those who were visiting the site but didn’t want to register. (great idea — though ideally, had it been technically possible, the site would have opened up all its message boards temporarily).
