Hurricane Relief

Bonaire is some 600 miles (1000km) south of the current hurricanes.  It looks like the Dutch marines have been staging some relief efforts to St. Maarten from the Flamingo Airport.  We've been using our 800AM station to broadcast news and encouragement during the night time hours.  Modern technology allows our people in the Dominican Republic, Chicago, and Cary, NC to all be on the air together live from Bonaire at the same time.


During the daytime, from 8:30am to 5:30pm, we are re-transmitting the Web feed from a radio station in St. Maartin.  Hopefully people who can't pick up the FM signal from St Maarten can hear our AM signal from Bonaire.


Here is how Bonaire station director, Bernard Oosterhoff, describes it: 

We are currently rebroadcasting the live FM broadcast of "Laser 101 FM", a station on St.Maarten.  We do this outside our regular programming during the daytyime. They have very valuable practical information e.g. about water supply, about the latest on Jose and help that is underway.  It’s a miracle they are on-air and we can get their stream, even though it’s on and off, so Brad is babysitting the stream and filling the gaps. We’re really not sure how far we reach during the day. We hope to get an indication.

We were requested by the National Crisis Center in the Netherlands to warn the people for Hurricane Jose and we recorded a weather forecast, which we air every hour.