Less than 40 minutes before the “CBS Early Show” was to go on live last Wednesday, torrential rain began flooding the studio on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. In a mad scramble, 40 staff members hailed cabs to move to an alternative studio six blocks away. The show, however, went on live as scheduled.
Co-anchor Hannah Storm was in her office at 6:20 a.m. during the powerful storm when the TV screen she was watching shut off, the Associated Press reported. She went into the newsroom to find water pouring through the ceiling and staff members covering computers and desks.
“We made an almost instantaneous decision to bolt,” Michael Bass, the show’s senior executive producer, told the AP. The production was hastily moved to Katie Couric’s “CBS Evening News” studio at the CBS Broadcast Center across town.
With the exception of some minor technical glitches, the show went on the network at 7 a.m.
Located across Fifth Avenue from the Plaza Hotel and on a concrete plaza featuring the glass- enclosed Apple Store, the CBS studio is at street level. When water on the plaza backed up during the downpour, it leaked into the studio. Water also entered the control and electrical equipment rooms a floor below the studio.
By early afternoon, the studio and control room had been dried out and were ready to return to operation.
