Florida News Center

(from News-Press.com) - Summer is normally a time to take it easy and relax, but managers at Waterman Broadcasting have shuffled staff around and given some folks new duties.

According to Darrel Lieze-Adams, who is the news director for WZVN ABC7 and WBBH NBC2, anchor Len Jennings (left) will fill in on the NBC2 4 p.m. newscast all summer. Meanwhile, anchor Craig Wolf (right) will fill in on the station’s 11 p.m. newscast.

These gentlemen are taking over the shows hosted by former NBC2 anchor Paul LaGrone, who recently left for West Palm Beach.

On top of that, Jennings will now solo anchor the ABC7 6 and 11 p.m. newscasts. His co-anchor, Stacey Deffenbaugh (left), has been moved to weekend mornings where she will anchor the ABC7 and NBC2 morning newscasts….Cont….

(from Sun-Sentinel.com) - Wrists manacled to waist chains, Paul Michael Merhige listened Thursday as a judge said a date will be set at a Sept. 27 hearing for his trial on charges of killing four family members on Thanksgiving Day.

Merhige is accused of killing his twin sisters, his aunt and 6 year-old cousin.

Public Defender Carey Haughwout, Merhige’s attorney, told Circuit Judge John Hoy it would not be unusual for the death penalty case to be tried up to two years after the crime.

For the first time since the case began, Jim and Muriel Sitton, the parents of Makayla Sitton, 6, the youngest victim to die that day, were present for a court hearing.

Jim Sitton (right), a photojournalist at WPTV-Ch. 5, said little to reporters….Cont….

(from TVTechnology.com) – Broadcasters along the Gulf and Atlantic coasts are bracing for what NOAA is calling an “active to extremely active” hurricane season this year. “If you had to choose a place on the planet to sit and get struck by a hurricane, than Miami would be the place to be,” said Darren Alline, chief engineer at ABC affiliate WPLG-10 in Miami. “Statistically, this city has the highest percentage of hurricanes of any location anywhere. So when NOAA says it’s going to be a very busy season, we get ready!”

Hurricane protection starts with “site hardening,” a lesson that has not been lost on WPLG. “Short of a catastrophic building failure, we have been hit with every kind of hurricane-induced damage that you can imagine,” Alline said. “That’s why we moved into a storm-strengthened studio complex—located in Pembroke Park, outside of Miami—in 2009. It is as tough as a city’s Emergency Operations Center, according to our insurance company.”

Among WPLG’s protective features: Its roof has very few penetrations for services, to minimize wind getting inside and ripping the covering off. The AC unit is also housed inside a well on the roof, so that it can’t be toppled by high winds. And if Miami’s city water supply should fail? No problem; WPLG’s AC system can draw cooling water directly from a nearby lake.

Fox affiliate WTVT 13 in Tampa, Fla., has taken similar precautions. “The studio and many of our inner walls are made from extra thick concrete, to protect staff from flying debris,” says Mike Howey, WTVT’s vice president of engineering and operations. “We have also installed storm shutters over all of our windows to protect our newsroom and technical areas.”….Cont….