B.C. flooding: Anatomy of a TV news story

ABBOTSFORD, B.C. -

As a TV news crew, some days are better than others. Some are tougher, some are more rewarding, and some are wild. Every now and then, you get all of the above.

If you haven’t seen our story from Wednesday night, I suggest you watch it first.

CTV National News had three crews covering the unprecedented situation in B.C. Our task was to find the people impacted by the situation in the Abbotsford area, and to tell the story of rescues.

We arrived in Abbotsford around 11 a.m., and got started. We knew we had to find a spot where rescue boats were being launched. The problem was, nobody seemed to know.

A local suggested one place. A videographer from CTV Vancouver suggested another. We did some fancy Google mapping, and got to the latter location (around a mountain or two) 20-30 minutes later.

But there were no rescue boats.

So, we spoke to a police officer, who told us he wasn’t aware of any rescue boats at all. We were about to give up on that spot, when a man with a perfectly groomed moustache and an intense look that made him somehow seem immediately credible walked up. He had overheard our conversation with the police officer, and told us he knew where the rescue boats were launching.

Again, to the Google Maps, to drop a pin. Again, a round-about route, circling a few mountains.

Thirty minutes later, there we were, in the spot our moustached friend suggested. And again, no rescue boats.

We decided to try a bit further down the same road, but that was fruitless. So we tried a second road, and again, found nothing but wet ground.

On the third and final option for routes from that spot, we came across a group of about six men, with a pickup truck and a dinghy in the back. It looked promising. We spoke to them, and it turned out, they were trying to get to a 67-year-old family member, who they hadn’t heard from. They were concerned his phone line was down, and he was stuck on the other side of floodwaters.

They let us tag along with them, and we put them in our story.

Once we had followed them as far as we could, we exchanged numbers so they could update us. They did, later, via text, and we were able to mention the happy outcome in our story.

By this point, we had reached a shut-down portion of the Trans-Canada Highway. We saw what looked like a roadblock, and decided to drive toward it.

As we drew closer, we realized it was not police, it was several vehicles and boats. Just past them, was the spot where Canada’s national highway disappeared into what looked like a sea. When we saw that shot, we knew that’s where the story had to start.

We spoke to the people there. It turned out, they were volunteers. Just a bunch of guys with boats, who were taking calls, answering Facebook messages, and rescuing people.

We spoke to one of them, and put it in the story. Then, they were wrapping up for the day.

As we tried to figure out our way back into Abbotsford from the closed stretch of Highway 1, we came across a couple of houses, with water up to the windows. We took some footage, and included that in the story. We shot an on-camera portion there, with me in hip-waders, talking about the extent of the flooding.

By now, we were running low on time to hit our deadline.

As we pulled away, we found an email from Candy Chan, an assignment editor and producer in Toronto. She had found a guy who had been rescued in the early morning hours. He had to climb out a bedroom window to get into his rescuers’ boat. We raced back into Abbotsford to find him, and speak with him about his ordeal. He also gave us cellphone footage he had taken.

Now, it was crunch time. Deadlines looming.

We tried to find a place with WiFi, to sit, pull out the laptop, and start piecing the story together, but every Starbucks and Tim Hortons we could find was closed.

Finally, we found a restaurant with the simple moniker: Wings.

We sat down, plugged in, and began working at a furious pace.

Viewing footage, picking the best shots, and the best soundbites is a daily part of the job, but it’s more intense when you’re up against the clock.

The plan was to edit the story right there at Wings, while perhaps eating some wings, but our internet connection had other plans.

With low internet speeds, trying to edit HD footage from a remote server, was likely impossible.

So at the last possible moment, the edit was moved to an edit suite in Toronto. We finished writing the story, got the script approved, and Joe Amato, an editor in Canada’s biggest city, got to work.

Our team returned to a field that had become a lake. The same location we first found when we entered Abbotsford, and shot two more on-camera portions of the story. We fed those back to the editor in Toronto, using a magical TV tool called a Dejero.

It was 12 hours after we started working on the story, and we were done.

Maybe you made it this far. Maybe not. For anyone who saw the story, and is interested, I thought it might be a good idea to pull back the curtains, to explain how these stories come about.

Often, as was the case today, it’s a combination of gambles, calculated decisions, and pure luck.

At the end of the day, we got to tell a great story. People did what people do. They came together when they were needed, went above and beyond, and looked out for their fellow human being.

Stories are about people. The best stories are about people doing great things.