Paul J. Gough turns in a must read in the Hollywood Reporter about what the news channels were going through today…

Journalists, who on Monday had weathered the 150 mph-plus winds and heavy rains from Katrina, found themselves faced not only with storm damage but also shortages of food, water and gasoline. Rising water in New Orleans KO’d an NBC News truck and cut off most TV journalists in the Crescent City from the rest of the country. And the deteriorating conditions there led to concerns about looting, other crime, dysentery and other water-borne diseases in the 90 degree-plus heat.

That’s atop a day marked by spotty communications and techniques and technology developed for the war in Iraq being used to get the story out from nature’s battlefield in and around New Orleans.

“We’re facing a couple of real tough days that will test the mettle of our personnel,” said David Verdi, vp worldwide newsgathering at NBC News.
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The “Bloom Mobile,” a mobile satellite uplink truck made famous by the late NBC News correspondent David Bloom, was called into action for the production of the “NBC Nightly News” with anchor Brian Williams, who is on the scene in New Orleans.

The Weather Channel lost two rental cars and a satellite truck during the height of the storm as meterologist Jim Cantore and crew scrambled from floor to floor at a veterans home to escape the rushing water. The satellite truck was stuck nose first in the water, said Terry Connelly, senior vp and general manager of the Weather Channel.

For a while there I was wondering why the Bloom Mobile wasn’t being used during the hurricane. Then I read what happened to CNN’s Hurricane One….