On November 7th, 2018 a man walked into a popular country bar and grill in Thousand Oaks, California (KCLU’s city of license), and opened fire, leading to 12 deaths, including that of a responding law enforcement officer. We were on the scene within an hour of the attack, even though it was the middle of the night, and covered it for us as well as for NPR, and other radio stations around the country.
But, less than 24 hours later, two major brush fires broke out in our area, forcing the evacuation of 75,000 people, and ultimately destroying or damaging 1600 structures in Ventura and Los Angeles Counties. We had two national stories going on at the same time in our backyard.
As the station’s News Director, and sole full time news employee, I was out in the field providing coverage of both major disasters for 10 straight days. This sampling includes a capsule of the first 48 hours of live field coverage, plus a story with someone impacted by the Borderline shooting, and one by the Woolsey Fire.
