Great Storm of 87

Something I've never seen depicted on the web or indeed discussed was BBC1's output on the morning of the great storm of 1987.

You may recall this is the famous storm that severely damaged much of London and the South East, causing travel chaos, powercuts and structural damage to property.

The only power at Television Centre was the UPS in Network Presentation. Output comprised Nicolas Witchell from NC1 Continuity, aka the Children's BBC 'Broom Cupboard' (yellow set) with all the children's pictures and posters taken down. Correspondents including Mike McKay dropped in with updates. The set was so small one could hear the door opening. I'm led to believe the duty announcer had to sit under the desk!

Someone somewhere must have this on tape. I did once, but it's long gone now.

You might want to read the (highly detailed and very funny) history of Breakfast Television on 'Off The Telly'
http://web.ukonline.co.uk/ott/breakfast.htm

It says of 1987:

More significant was the drama of the autumn. Famously denied by Michael Fish beforehand, the night of Thursday October 15 saw dramatic storms rage across southern England, uprooting trees, felling power lines, crushing buildings and leaving most of the south east without any electricity. The following morning, Friday, found Lime Grove completely blacked out. Instead, a now-legendary shoestring programme had to be broadcast, hosted by the BBC newsreader living closest to Television Centre: Nicholas Witchell.

The hapless Witchell had to sit in the only studio working at the time – which by a wonderful stroke of fate happened to be the self-styled 'Broom Cupboard', the tiny continuity presentation room utilized as a 'studio' for Children's BBC where current host Andy Crane sat surrounded by kids drawings, strange objects, small toys, cards and posters. Amusingly there wasn't time for all of these to be removed before this emergency news service went on air. At 7am Britain awoke to, in Witchell's words, 'a funny little red-haired figure telling them, from what appeared to be a bunker or a broom cupboard, to go and make a cup of tea and on no account to go out of their homes because something terrible had happened.'

This painful but hilarious transmission - Witchell simply reading out stories phoned in by reporters - lasted for two hours until normal service was restored at 9am. But it wasn't just the BBC who suffered. The first hour of Good Morning Britain had to be broadcast from Thames TV's Euston Road studios after all power was lost at Camden Lock. But though dramatic, it was only a very temporary upset and would immediately pale into comparison with the crisis the station found itself at the centre of the following month.

Unfortunately we didn't have any power for a week, so I was never able to see any of this!

Am I being very thick? what crisis?

I remember waking up and watching Open Air, the television programme about television programmes, that morning.

It completely changed its remit and did specials about the weather instead. Bob Wellings found out that a tree had hit his car/porch/wife I can't remember which.

Of course, Open Air came from Manchester which was completely unaffected.

I was in the midlands at the time, which was also pretty much unscathed. The regional opt-out specials for these areas were a tad pointless.