A local TV station has returned to full broadcast Wednesday afternoon after a storm on Tuesday.
WRCB Channel 3 was kicked off the air and lost power in the studio Tuesday at 4:40 p.m. when heavy wind and rain moved through the Chattanooga area.
Within a minute, generators restored power to equipment in the building, but there was one major problem: there was no video or audio transmission to viewers.
Engineers and IT technicians worked for just over 20 hours to restore the broadcast, which resumed as normal today after 1 p.m.
President and General Manager Tom Tolar said a piece of equipment used to transfer video from the studio to the transmitter had been wiped out sometime during the storm. The transmitter had kept running, but there was no video coming through.
Not all viewers had to wait so long, Tolar said. WRCB restored audio and later video to Comcast customers after 8 p.m. Tuesday, and then to EPB customers after 11 p.m. AT&T U-verse customers received access through a fiber link on Wednesday.
"It was a lengthy process," Tolar said. "The viewers have been really understanding, so even though it's been a very difficult time it's been very pleasing to know that people were treating us as well as we could expect."