Taking on New Adventures

As many of you know, I’ve been freelancing for CNN since February. In my quest to take control of my schedule and be able to create and respond to opportunities that I want to do, I’m grateful that CNN still gives me a chance to get out and have new experiences.

It’s no secret I’ve covered my fair share of hurricanes. So when they sent correspondent Martin Savidge and photographer Stuart Clark to New Orleans for Tropical Storm Marco coverage, I offered to produce. Fortunately, Marco was a big ole dud and only gave some surrounding areas some heavy rains.

The storm that everyone was concerned with was Laura. Early in the week, it was barely a Tropical Storm. But we knew as it hit the Gulf, the wind speeds would increase and it could be potentially a major hurricane.

While the track was still kind of “iffy”, most models showed it would hit along the Louisiana/Texas coast.

So after 5 hours of live shots on Tuesday, starting at 4:30 a.m. local time, I rented a car and made my way to Houston, where our team was directed to go. The normal 5 1/2 hour drive took over 7 1/2 hours due to blinding rain storms thanks to Marco and traffic from the evacuees heading to Houston and beyond.

After making it to Houston, we were told our next live shot was at 10 a.m. local the next morning so we’d be able to get a little sleep.

That was short lived as my phone rang at 6:30 in the morning on Wednesday with the direction to head to Lake Charles, since that was where the storm was expected to hit. I made a round of calls and told the team we were backtracking 2 hours to Lake Charles.

As we made our drive in, our team in Atlanta helped secure some hotel rooms for us. I made my way to the Golden Nugget, checked in and drug my suitcase, snacks and water from the parking deck, across the Casino floor (which was closed) and to the elevators to my room.

I was in my room no less than 30 minutes when I was told to leave and head to another hotel since it was on higher ground. I had not unpacked, but had to load up, drag everything back to the car and drove to the new hotel.

Once there, after a 20 minute wait, I checked in and made my way to my new room. Just a short time later, we held a meeting with everyone and decided to head back to the Golden Nugget since our new hotel didn’t seem very safe. It was literally a few years old and typically those buildings aren’t as structurally sound as older ones.

So, back upstairs I went, grabbed my stuff (still not unpacked) and headed back to the Golden Nugget. Fortunately I had not checked out so made my way back up to my room.

We spent the afternoon walking around and deciding the safest place to broadcast from, as we were told that we were the overnight team.

Around 6:30 p.m., we got the call to evacuate Lake Charles. The problem was that the first bands of Laura had already hit and it was likely to deteriorate in the next couple of hours. Not only that, I-10 was closing and they were pulling cars off the interstate in advance of the storm.

So after a lot of back and forth and, finally, a conference call with the team on the ground, the decision was made to stay.

And thus begins our hurricane coverage.

Part 2 of this blog will focus on the overnight hours of Wednesday to Thursday, as the eye of the storm hit Lake Charles