The MJ Morning Show crew is no stranger to hurricanes. MJ has lived in Florida since 1992. Roxanne and Froggy were both born in the Tampa Bay area. Fester moved to the region as a youngster. And while we haven’t learned too much about Andrew’s background, it seems like he has lived in these parts for a good while.
In addition to living through tropical storms and hurricanes, the crew members have had the opportunity to cover many storms over the last few decades as broadcasters. When Hurricane Ian was approaching the Sunshine State during the last week of September, the show did what it always does – going into “auto pilot” hurricane coverage mode.
Throughout the week, the crew mixed in a ton of listener phone calls from around the Tampa Bay area and south, as well as provided updates on the storm track, power outages, gas and supply availability, notable flooding and damage, and other important news relevant to a broad listening audience. In addition, longtime and highly respected Tampa Bay meteorologist Denis Phillips (whom Froggy jokingly refers to as “Dee-nis”) from ABC Action News made multiple appearances on the program, speaking to the crew by phone for over an hour at times. Even retired NewsChannel 8 meteorologist Steve Jerve briefly came out of retirement to phone into the program to provide his expertise.
During several shows, the crew went well past its typical 9:45 a.m. sign-off from Q105. In fact, in one instance, MJ and Fester stayed on the air until after 1 p.m., going for over seven hours of broadcasting that day after opening the show at the regular time of 6 a.m. The crew also opted not to play any music at all during several broadcasts. Instead, they wanted to provide as much live and local information as possible, something that has become more and more of a rarity on radio these days.
In the aftermath of Ian, Beasley Media Group which owns Q105 has provided a platform for donations to the American Red Cross. However, since the radio company is based in Naples, FL in the heart of much of the storm’s destruction, they ensure that all of the donations they are collecting are specifically going toward relief efforts in the impacted areas. While we all love the MJ Morning Show for its bits, stunts, jokes, and hearing the crew take jabs at each other, they once again proved that they can get serious when it is necessary. As MJ stated multiple times, while the Tampa Bay area was spared from a major disaster, his heart aches tremendously for those in Southwest Florida.