VICKSBURG - There were many shining stars during Mississippi's confrontation with Katrina. One of them, an especially bright one, was Mississippi Public Radio.
What an irony that its light might be dimmed as funding goes to "other priorities."
During the storm's approach and through day after day of emergency conditions, the staff of MPR, in measured tones, provided calm, clear and precise information.
There was no hype, no theatrics, no theme music and, being radio and all, no flashy graphics.
Radio may be the old dude - second only to printing - as a communications technology, but in the dark of the night and all through the days post-Katrina, radios worked when little else did. And in the skilled hands of public broadcasters, radio trumped the new kids - TV, telephone and the Internet.
Marie Antoon, executive director of Mississippi Public Broadcasting with its network of eight TV and radio transmitters around the state and 130 employees, admits being impressed.
"Our staff really did some amazing things," she said.
Coming to work was the first positive point. MPB is, after all, a state agency and, by declaration of the governor, state employees were excused, with pay, from reporting to their jobs during the crisis.
Staying on the air was another challenge.
A 1,500-foot tower at McHenry, right on the line separating Stone and Harrison counties, was a key link in serving a broad swath of coastal Mississippi and parts of Louisiana and Alabama. The tower stayed up, but the generator there, and those at Meridian and Jackson, needed a constant stream of diesel. And once the fuel was found, finding tankers that could deliver it, Antoon said, was next-to-impossible. But it was done.
The most important aspect, however, was providing reliable and relevant information, as opposed to speculation and chatter.
"That's where Gene's experience came in," Antoon said.
"Gene" is Gene Edwards, an Indiana native with a voice that is soft yet exudes confidence, even reassurance.
After years as news anchor for WAPT, an ABC affiliate in Jackson, Edwards joined MPB as director of content development about two years ago.
For a while, a more appropriate title might have been "catcher of slings and arrows." That's because Edwards has been the guiding force in changing MPR's format from classical music interspersed with national news and a couple of hours of weekend programming to a stronger emphasis on local programs, many of them zeroing in on life in Mississippi. That has cut into the hours upon hours of classical music - and Mozart fans have demanded Edwards' head on a platter.
Antoon said Hurricane Ivan in 2004 provided a template for the Katrina response, defining a key statewide role. As the larger storm approached, MPR went on the air with "Nothing But Hurricane" a day and a half before landfall and kept going pretty much around the clock for the next six days.
A priority was keeping a staffer at Mississippi Emergency Management Agency headquarters to provide direct reports for those who evacuated and those who didn't. Otherwise, the idea was to provide relevant information from "people in the field," including citizens who could call in to report traffic jams, availability of motel space, shelter information - including specialized information on where people could take horses.
MPR became a hub not only for essential information for evacuees, but for factual accounts of what had taken place. People, experts will tell you, don't panic over catastrophes. They panic over the unknown. MPR stood boldly in the gap.
As things go, no sooner did folks in Washington start talking about the cost of the recovery than they started looking for who'd pay.
Antoon (a Greenwood native) may have been shocked but wasn't surprised when funds for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which provides about 10 percent of the $12 million it takes to run public radio and television in Mississippi each year, were listed as an optional expense.
As a member of the national board, she has responded by telling the story of MPR in Washington and, she says, will keep on telling it.
"They did it right," she said of her staff. "They were a vital resource."
Due to Katrina, funds via Congress may yet be reduced; those from the state, too. And a whole bunch of private donors are probably tapped out.
Antoon is undaunted. "People tell me we made a difference, and I really believe we did," she said. If a hurricane couldn't do them in, she assures a cash crisis, if it develops, will be managed. Or, as Antoon put it, "We plan to be here."
