Coping with crisis: Florida stations face coverage challenges during Hurricane Charley.

When Hurricane Charley slammed into Fort Myers, Fla., two weeks ago, it caught the National Hurricane Center (NHC) and local stations off-guard. "Tracking a hurricane can get pretty esoteric," says John Emmert, news director at WINK in Fort Myers. "It's not an exact science because there's never a fixed point where it can land."

That meant local forecasters in Fort Myers had to make a life-or-death decision: Do they listen to government reports or trust their own meterologists?

In this instance, they were hobbled by conflicting reports from the NHC, which d