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 middles of the night, and covered it for us as well as for NPR as well as other radio stations around the country. But, less than 24 hours later, two major brush fires broke out in our area, killing three people, forcing the evacuation of 75,000 people, and ultimately destroying or damaging 1600 structures in Ventura and Los Angeles Counties. We had two major breaking news stories (the shooting and the fires) going on at the same time in our backyard, and we had to cover both. (The rules say we can only submit a single story in this category, but you need to know the extreme circumstances we were facing). 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 includes a capsule of the first 48 hours, plus a story with someone impacted by the Borderline shooting, and one by the Woolsey Fire.
"A Senseless Rampage-The Borderline Bar And Grill Attack"
