No cameras, no national storm help?

MOSCOW, Ohio - A small village was devastated by a massive tornado that ripped through the heart of town. Early wire reports told the world that a deadly twister had struck Moscow, Ohio.

But the national story ended there.

The network cameras directed their attention to Indiana. That was due in large part to the fact that there was more damage in Indiana than in Kentucky and Ohio. But there's another reason, one that resulted in much of aid going not to Moscow or Peach Grove, but to Holton and Henryville.

A veteran of more than a dozen hurricanes, I already knew of this phenomenon first hand. That's why I tried hard to get into Moscow in the hours immediately following the tornado's impact there.

Emergency management officials kept all news media behind a police line on US 52. I reached that cordon only after talking my way through multiple road blocks leading into town.

This is not a criticism of the rescue effort, which can be described as nothing less than heroic. Saving lives and helping those trapped in the rubble must be the primary -- if not only -- concern of rescue crews.

But history says that national aid follows the news cameras.

My day Friday during the storms started just outside Alexandria, Ky. I staged at a gas station, watching the tornado's progress on our mobile weather app. As soon as it passed, I drove into the path of destruction to begin reporting in the storm's aftermath.

I ended up on Peach Grove Road between Grant's Lick and Peach Grove, Kentucky. I was behind the very first fire truck responding to the scene. Firefighters leapt from the truck at one point with their chainsaws to clear tress blocking the road.

I was on Channel 9 via cell phone when I pulled up to a Peach Grove neighborhood devastated by the twister.

The responding firefighters ordered me to stay back with my camera. It was too dangerous, they insisted. In their defense, they didn't know of my two decades of experience in hurricanes, tornadoes and war zones.

Behind police tape, using a zoom lens, I could see the side of a farmhouse ripped off, revealing the furnished rooms on the first and second floors. It looked like a doll house. Across the street the remnants of a trailer home littered the ground. Multiple barns had collapsed, and the roofs of several houses were gone.

That's when I got the call to head to Moscow. The same tornado had jumped the Ohio River and destroyed much of the village.

With no access to the scene in Peach Grove, there was no reason to stay. We could not get close enough to tell the human stories of survival and heroism. As a result, few people knew of the dozens of houses destroyed in that one rural neighborhood.

I witnessed a similar effect in New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. I was there for two weeks after the city flooded in 2005.

The media got to the heart of New Orleans long before federal help arrived. But wherever we would point our cameras one day, the help would arrive the next. It was a powerful demonstration of the importance of the news media in times of disaster.

In particular I remember an interchange off I-10 in New Orleans (pictured in the slideshow above) where literally thousands had gathered waiting to be rescued. We showed the pictures of human suffering on the news in New York, and the network picked up the story to share it with the nation.

The next day the interchange was empty. Every single person had been bussed to shelters in Houston. A few days later, the NYPD showed up in Louisiana to help.

The Saturday after the tornado, emergency management officials still were not allowing cameras into the hardest hit areas of Moscow. WCPO and its news crews didn't give up. We have stayed on the story, but the national media have practically ignored the Ohio village.

The governor at first did not ask for federal help, but that may also have been influenced by the media coverage. After consideration, he has now called upon the National Guard. Our ABC affiliate from Columbus, WSYX-6, had driven all the way to Moscow by 9:30 p.m. Friday night. Yet they were stopped at a road block 1,000 feet or so from the location where rescuers were saving lives. No one in Columbus would see the destruction or the need that night.

All of this may sound self-serving, but I'm not arguing that the media should come first in any disaster situation. Yet we do play a vital role offering information that can help save lives. In the aftermath, our coverage can have a real impact on the direction of aid dollars and volunteer muscle responding to locations where they're needed most.

Next time, we will make every effort to get as close as possible without getting in the way.

Hopefully emergency management officials will see the value in letting us capture their heroic efforts on video, both for posterity and to lure the help survivors will need in the days and weeks that follow.