Hurricane Helene wreaked havoc on the Atlantic coast during late September and early October last year. Few places were as damaged as the Asheville, North Carolina area. And 570 WWNC morning show host and News Director Mark Starling had a front-row seat to all of the carnage.
On Thursday, September 26, 2024, Starling went to work at the iHeartMedia Asheville news/talk station.
He didn’t know it at the time, but he and colleagues like producer Tank Spencer would spend the next 14-and-a-half days on the air, commercial-free. Connecting listeners throughout the region to vital, life-saving resources, as well as one another.
In the months following the devastation, the radio industry has recognized Mark Starling and 570 WWNC for their work during the hurricane and subsequent flooding. The station earned both a regional and national Edward R. Murrow Award for its coverage. Additionally, Starling was also nominated for a 2025 Marconi Radio Award for Small Market Personality of the Year. 570 WWNC was also nominated for Small Market Station of the Year. They’ll find out if they’re winners later this month.
Mark Starling said navigating the extra attention to him, the station, the cluster, and the market hasn’t always been easy.
“I never got into radio to get awards in the first place,” he shared. “Just being nominated for an award like (the Murrow Awards), no less winning it. I just never thought my name would be associated with that. That was a big deal. It’s still difficult, because I’m still of the mindset that the work wasn’t necessarily ‘award-winning,’ per se. This is what broadcasters do. This is what every broadcaster in the country does when their community is in a position like what we were in.
“It’s just a lot,” he continued, fighting back tears. “It’s just hard to wrap my head around,” he added before crediting colleagues like Eddie Fox, Amanda Fox, Josh Michael, Ariel Rymer, Tank Spencer, Brian Hall, and Ashley Wilson, among others, for their work during the two week period.
“If any member on that team was different, then this coverage would not have happened the way it did,” said Starling. “I don’t know that we’d be having the same conversation. I firmly believe that the right people were in the right place at the right time during a really bad event and we managed to make it work.”
There’s a dichotomy of the situation that Starling is forced to grapple with. On one hand, he’s proud of the work iHeartMedia’s Asheville teams produced when the community needed them the most. On the other, it came on the heels of pain, devastation, and uncertainty for a community he loves.
“I’ve probably said it 100 times: I would trade every article, every award, every nomination, and every recognition to be able to go back to September 25th and for that storm to go a different route,” he said. “I’m fully aware that the recognition is happening because a really horrific thing happened. There is a lot of levity in that.”
As vital resources became scarce in the aftermath of the storm, 570 WWNC served as a vital lifeline for the Asheville community. Thousands of listeners were exposed to the work done on the station after Helene hit. Starling said he’s felt the audience grow and prosper in the year following the carnage.
“I cannot tell you how many times that I have walked into the grocery store and been minding my own business in the produce section and someone walks up and just says, ‘Hey, I just wanted to thank you, and I wanted to just say hi and tell you how much what you and the team did meant to us. Can I give you a hug?’
“Maybe 10 trips to the grocery store since the storm has that not happened,” Starling continued. “There is such a special bond with these people now. I think there always was a special bond, we just didn’t know who a lot of the folks were. That’s one of the tough parts of radio. You don’t get to know every single listener on an intimate level. There was a certain amount of realism and just genuine bonding that took place that has continued. I don’t think it’s leveled off any.”
Recently, Mark Starling has started to go back and listen to each hour of the marathon broadcast. And as he reminisces, he said that he’s noticed something he wasn’t necessarily aware of in the moment. But as the hours turned to days, and days turned to weeks, he became more and more cognizant of.
“You kind of realize we weren’t necessarily providing people with any sort of groundbreaking information, because the truth was, there was no groundbreaking information,” he shared. “I think most of what we were doing was providing companionship and providing a place for someone to have an outlet. That if they wanted to vent their frustrations about whatever it was — whether it was FEMA, the county government, or whether it was the gas station or running out of gas — I think we just gave them a platform. I think that they have embraced that and continue to embrace that.”
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Garrett Searight is Barrett Media’s News Editor, which includes writing daily news stories, features, and opinion columns. He joined Barrett Media in 2022 after a decade leading several radio brands in several formats, as well as a 5-year stint working in local television. In addition to his work with Barrett Media, he is a radio and TV play-by-play broadcaster. Reach out to him at Garrett@BarrettMedia.com.
