A look back at NewsOK coverage the June 14 floods

A thunderstorm hit on Monday morning.

No big deal, right? It happens. We’ll deal with it.

Then, it kept raining. And it kept raining.

Pretty soon, all of us in the Oklahoma City area were affected.

What was an innocent thunderstorm became a dangerous flood.

NewsOK sprang into action. By mid-morning, as the scope of the story became larger and larger, NewsOK had:

• live video
• a live chat
• a half-dozen constantly updated stories
• updated photo galleries
• a live blog (actually, that began at about 6 a.m., thanks to Bryan Painter)
• live radars, watches, warnings and other weather data

NewsOK compiled comprehensive coverage. It was as complete as we could possibly get, with reporters, photographers and videographers spread out all over the city, sending consistent updates to those in our newsroom.

Our audience took note, as well.

June 14, 2010 broke a new record for web traffic to NewsOK.com, topping our previous one-day record — May 11, 2010 (the day after the May 10 tornadoes).

We know breaking news drives traffic on NewsOK. That’s why the newsroom and NewsOK activates into breaking news mode so quickly.

We’re not looking to break traffic records. Our goal is to inform the public. Breaking records is just a bi-product of that goal.