Quote:
Originally Posted by Handsome Stranger
January 22, 1956: The Los Angeles Police Department and local media broadcast one of the very first “SigAlerts” following the worst train wreck in city history.
The alert was triggered by the accident of a Santa Fe passenger train which had departed Union Station and derailed at Redondo Junction, southwest of Boyle Heights. The accident killed 30 people and injured 117.
It was the first major disaster in the Los Angeles area covered by live television.
[photo source and more notes on the accident: lafire.com] |
In the late 1940s, T.V. station KTLA covered on live T.V. the attempted rescue of a child from a well. I believe the child was named Cathy Fiscus or something like that. Unfortunately, the child didn't make it. Maybe not a major disaster, but a tragic incident. This may have been the first T.V. live feed of a news story from the field, outside of a studio. Maybe somebody can post more info on this case. As a kid, I remember watching the failure of the Baldwin Hills Dam on KTLA, I believe in 1963. Houses were carried down the hill.