As you've probably heard, the big news of the week has been the overpass in the East Bay that collapsed after a tanker truck straight up 'sploded early Sunday morning. This made national headlines and is currently causing ungodly traffic all over the area. Of course, our station was there to cover it!
However, my part in covering the report was a little less exciting than you might imagine. I was put in charge of covering the local commute to the Bay Area, specifically by heading to the Sacramento Amtrak station to get reaction from the crowds of people trying to make it out West. I loaded up the live truck in the early hours of Monday morning and headed to do my journalist duty.
Fortunately, I just so happened to set up right in front of a Starbucks, so with a jolt of caffeine, I was ready to tackle my story. (By some strange coincidence, at least half of my live shots have taken place at or near a Starbucks. Wild.)
So with that, I threw up the mast, propped up the camera, and we were ready to roll!
I was ready to bring my story to the people and give them the info that they needed in order to work their way through this transportation nightmare. The sun began to rise at 6 AM, and we were ready to go live!
Everything was set up perfectly and I was pumped to be able to contribute to the coverage of such a big story. There was just one thing missing...
That's right...
The place was a damn ghost town. There were more tumbleweeds than people rolling through there. Despite extra trains and an insane commute, people opted not to take the train into the city. Thus I spent two lonely morning hours at an abandoned train station, with the anchors every once in a while going to my shot and saying, "The commute is going to be pretty bad going onto town, here's a live look at the Amtrak station... which doesn't seem to have anybody there, so maybe it's not that bad." Just doing my part to bring the important stories to you, the viewer.
Tune in later this week to see my reports on a river that isn't flooding, a house that isn't on fire, and my big sweeps story, a baby that doesn't need his diaper changed!
