Exhilarating and Frightening: ABC13 anchor Tom Koch reflects on reporting on his first hurricane - Alicia

Friday, August 17, 2018
HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- Alicia was my first hurricane. And after she roared through 35 years ago, I prayed she was my last.

I had been at Channel 13 less than a year and had never experienced a hurricane being from Wisconsin.

The station sent me to Clear Lake to ride out Alicia and what a ride it was. As we sat inside a hotel that night, waiting for the storm, I wondered what I was in for.

As you can see from the video, I was in for the ride of my life. Standing on the bridge along Nasa Road 1 that next morning as the storm roared, I began to think snow and freezing temperatures weren't so bad after all.

But it was the reporting experience of a lifetime, exhilarating and frightening at the same time.

The devastation was mind boggling. That concentration of wind and water turned streets and rivers into junkyards and sent thousands running for their lives.

Weeks later, we were still doing stories on the clean up and power outages. And it turned out, Alicia was the first of many giant storms I've covered over the years.

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