SYRACUSE -- The WSYR newsroom was flooded and all six Clear Channel stations in Syracuse were knocked off the air for a brief period this morning, due to a burst water pipe.
According to a report by John Mariani for the Syracuse Post-Standard, the pipe burst just after 9am. Some stations returned to the air "fairly quickly," but Newsradio 570 WSYR remained off the air for nearly 45 minutes. The report says a temporary newsroom has been set up in a production studio. The report didn't say how long it will be until the newsroom returns to service.
Clear Channel GM Joel Delmonico told Mariani, "electrical service to the studios was tripped" by the burst pipe. Engineers for the stations and Bridgewater Place (the name of the building where Clear Channel is located) inspected the damage to make sure there wouldn't be any safety hazards before turning the electricity back on.
In addition to WSYR, the cluster includes AC Y94FM (WYYY), CHR Hot 107.9 (WWHT), urban Power 106.9 (WPHR), country B104.7 (WBBS) and SportsRadio 620 WHEN.
I'm reminded of the time in 1991 when I was Producer of the Club Gomez Wake-Up Show in that very building. One morning the Young Agency's automatic coffee maker clogged in the office directly upstairs from Y94FM's air studio. A befuddled Glenn "Gomez" Adams and I scrambled to cover the brand new control console with anything we could get our hands on as the heavens rained down through the acoustic-tiled ceiling.
Y94FM was running out of its tiny newsbooth for several days as the equipment was painstakingly dried out by Engineering.
Good times, good times....
It does illustrate there are also disadvantages to running multiple stations out of one facility.
This reminds me of when you went by boat to get to WNDR radio. The station was always flooded. I beleive there are pictures on some website somewhere showing the floods.