Brian Williams remembers vividly when he came to admire WWL Radio when he was in New Orleans covering the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
“Remember, I started as a customer,” said Williams, who would go on to appear on WWL’s Garland Robinette Show in the days and months following the storm. “It was during that first night and all subsequent nights of Katrina, I leaned on WWL as a listener, no different from native New Orleanians.”
Williams said the station brought to life stories that needed to be told along with vital information for residents dealing with the devastation on a personal level.
“It was the lifeline, whether it was a live interview with a woman who was caring for infants in what used to be the neonatal ward at Charity Hospital… or any number of public safety officials, those were desperate days and desperate hours,” Williams said. “And the Big 870, man, was the essence, the definition of local radio as a public service using the public airwaves. It stitched the fabric of New Orleans back together in real time.”
Appearing on The Scoot Show, the former NBC Nightly News anchor said the station breathes life into the Gulf South, and that the station has proved to be “absolutely vital to anyone within the sound of WWL’s signal.
It reminds us that we’re in this together.”