TV news anchors, correspondents and meteorologists may not have to go far from their New York headquarters to cover Hurricane Irene as the Category 3 storm barrels toward the East Coast.
With the 11amET advisory, the storm continues its catastrophic path toward North Carolina, the DelMarVa peninsula and the coasts of New Jersey, New York and New England.
The Weather Channel just added an “EXTREME” threat level category from eastern North Carolina to southern New England.
NBC’s Al Roker is in the appropriately named Duck, NC alongside his Weather Channel colleague Stephanie
Abrams. “We’ll stay here through tomorrow then head to either coastal New Jersey or New York,” Roker tells TVNewser between liveshots on MSNBC.
ABC’s Matt Gutman, CBS’s Mark Strassman, NBC’s Kerry Sanders, CNN’s John Zarrella and FNC’s John
Roberts are all along the Outer Banks of North Carolina, where Irene will first be felt on the mainland sometime Saturday.
A veteran of many hurricanes, Roker says this one reminds him of the last major hurricane to storm the Northeast coast when Roker was the weatherman on WNBC.
“I cut my eyeteeth in 1985 with Hurricane Gloria (track, left). And Irene is taking almost the same path,” says Roker. Gloria made a first landfall in the Outer Banks before making a second landfall in Long Island, NY.
While reporting on the current path, Roker and his team are planning ahead: “We have our evacuation plan in place. We’ll head to Norfolk then fly out of Norfolk. This storm is interesting in that we’re staying ahead of it. We’ve got fair-weather clothing as well as our storm gear.”