August 25, 2001, quite possibly the worst day of my life.
We were scheduled to televise a high school football game that night. The forecast that day called for showers and thunderstorms, but nothing like we got. The night before we had a game at the same place so our truck, equipment, cables, and scaffolding was all still there, all we had to do was set up cameras and the announcers booth, and we would be set.
Arriving at 3:00pm, myself and our producer headed over to the stadium to beat a line a storms that was approaching. We get to the stadium just as the rain arrived. Taking shelter in our truck the rain begins to pour down we turned on the weather channel and see a big red blob on the radar display that's moving right at us. Warning sirens begin to go off in town as the rain got heavier and heavier. At one point it was coming down so hard we could only see about 75 in front of us, and it showed no sign of letting up.
We went to work setting up our announcers booth which was sheltered from the rain, doing our best to keep stuff dry. At 5:00pm The rain is still coming down just as heavy, the big red blob on the radar screen isn't moving. Now what, we got to try and put up cameras sometime. Airtime is only 90 minutes away, A quick peek outside revealed a more pressing issue. Water draining off the field had collected where our truck was parked and it was up to it's axles in water. All of the cables coming out of our truck had disappeared under water, including power cables. We quickly set to work fishing them out of the water and resting them on the cross members of the bleachers.
Finally at 5:45pm with the rain just as heavy as ever we put up cameras, with multiple garbage bags acting as insurance to the rain jackets already installed on them. We got them set up, and somehow genlocked and phased with all the plastic covering them. We let out a sigh of relief as we thought we would dodge a bullet as everything was working OK. The only hitch was the intercom system, still working, but sounding like an AM radio station during a lightning storm because of the water.
Now the rain is starting to let up. hallelujah. We might just pull this off after all. WRONG. The heavily air-conditioned cameras have spent a night in the truck, then brought out into a 75 degree 100% humidity environment unable to "breathe", dewed up and began shorting out, at of all times, 10 minutes before air. The first victim was our main camera on top the press box, an old Hitachi CCD camera, first the viewfinder went dead, then it refused to genlock, rendering it useless. Our two field cameras, newer Panasonic DVCPRO's lasted a little longer. We did the game as best we could, in the now light rain, with the two field cameras, but then in the second quarter, my camera suddenly locked up, the viewfinder started displaying garbage, and then it shut down, refusing to power back up.
Left with only one camera that was also flaky, we called the game at half-time. Shame too because the game turned out to be an overtime thriller. We tore down and left. Back at the office, we opened up the cameras, let them dry out over the weekend. On Monday, a quick test revealed the cameras to be in working order. Thank god because we had no money in our budget left for repairs. Maybe next time we should try gortex?
