Eyewitness news
Bob Kealing recalls a time when his wife wasn’t too fond of his news reporting career.
She watched helplessly as a roof was ripped off a house by a raging storm and landed behind him.
“I think the camera angle of the shot made it look like it landed right behind me, but it was actually a little further back than it seemed,” says Kealing, who’s covered over a dozen hurricanes and tropical storms as a news reporter for WESH-TV in Orlando.
Kealing’s biggest ordeal came when locked his keys in the news truck while covering Hurricane Opal in 1995.
At the same time, Dan Rather was delivering broadcasts while latched onto a pole, and here he was making rookie mistakes by losing his keys. Later that night his team stopped to refuel and he noticed a reporter with his arm through the car window and was struggling to reach for something inside.
Sure enough, it was Dan Rather—and Kealing ended up helping him retrieve his keys.