Power outages caused by high winds and flooding due to Hurricane Dolly which made landfall on Wednesday, July 23, temporarily silenced at least two of the World Radio Network (WRN) stations in South Texas due to power outages.

WRN is one of HCJB Global's cooperating ministries.

KVMV, an English-language station in the Rio Grande Valley near McAllen, Texas, was forced off the air for about 2½ days.

Engineer Jimmy Stinson was helpless to remedy the situation until utility crews could restore power to the transmitter site, approximately 30 miles west of Brownsville. KVMV is a 100,000-watt station with coverage in a radius of more than 80 miles and approximately 1 million potential listeners.

On Monday, July 28, stagnant water remained in neighborhoods and homes in the lower valley area. A number of area roads were still covered with water and more than 45,000 customers were still without power.

Meanwhile, WRN station KBNR in Brownsville, Texas, was not seriously affected by the hurricane, "other than the times we were off the air due to power outages at the transmitter site," said engineer Don Larson.

"God graciously diverted the category 2 hurricane, at the last minute, about 35 miles to the north of Brownsville where there is a much lower population density. This resulted in only 60 mph winds at the studio site and transmitter site which only broke tree limbs and temporarily isolated the studio site by flooding the access road," he said.

"KBNR was off the air for 13 hours, and we operated at low power for 12 hours." Larson added. "The webcast continuously went out to the Internet listeners. Whenever we're on the air, the station is a positive source of comfort not provided by the secular media."

WRN's national Spanish satellite delivery service, located south of McAllen, was virtually unaffected during the hurricane with only minor power outages.

Story posted: July 29, 2008