News Preempted in B-More

Viewers tuingin for the 4PM newscast on WJZ in Baltimore, were met with a crawl saying the newscast had been preempted, due to an electrical fire at the station.

Insiders tell FTVLive that behind the scenes it was a bigger mess.

“The building filled with smoke yesterday and the studio smelled like burnt plastic, but no fire alarms went off and no announcements were made,” a station insider tells FTVLive, adding, “People were confused, unsure if they should evacuate or stay put. Some got word, others didn’t. It was a mess.”

Eventually, this email went out to the staff:

We are still trying to assess what happened and how it happened. Unfortunately, there aren't many answers yet.

Earlier this afternoon, smoke was seen and smelled coming from the basement and began spreading throughout part of the building. The assumption was that it was a fire, and that's when we proceeded to evacuate the building, and the fire department was called.

The fire department determined the fire was short-lived and because when they arrived, there was a lot of smoke, but the fire self-smothered. They checked the basement, building and rooftop to make sure.

BCD's consensus was that something burned up in a unit downstairs in the basement, but it's unclear what. We've called in people to begin the process of assessing what happened.

Glen is onsite to work with them. We're also troubleshooting more specifically, why the alarms didn't go off in the basement & digi-core areas.

Thank you to the managers around the building and Sgt. Gilbert who made sure the building was cleared in a safe and timely manner through her constant surveillance of the building.

We are in the process of venting out Studio A because much of the smoke traveled into that area via the way our air handlers are set up. If you see a closed door, please leave it closed as that's helping guide air flow.

We'll assess around 4:30pm what we'll be doing on-air.

Kristina, Melanie and Joel - thank you for helping with a 4pm programming sotution white we worked through all of this.

Thank you all for your patience, your level-headedness and to the maintenance tech's immediate response to the situation.

More updates to come soon-

Kathy Hostetter
President & General Manager | WJZ-TV CBS Baltimore

“Between the rodents, the smoke, and the breakdown in basic safety protocols, it’s hard not to wonder what’s next at WJZ,” said a station employee, adding “Chaos shouldn’t be the norm.”