Gainesville-based hip hop radio station Magic 101.3 is temporarily off the air due to a downed tower from Hurricane Helene. Magic serves Gainesville, Ocala and surrounding areas, targeting listeners ages 18 to 49.
Station staffers worked quickly to get the online stream back up and running, but repairing the tower will require more work.
“It’s going to be a long time. There’s a lot to do, a lot of procedures we have to follow,” said Marty Hall, MARC Media’s technical operations manager. “In the meantime, we’re looking at what we can do.”
The Magic tower is located just outside of Williston in Levy County. A little after 10:30 p.m. on Thursday evening, gusts of wind from Hurricane Helene knocked the tower down. The tower also took the roof of the transmitter building with it.
“It’s tied up like a pretzel. It’s bad,” Hall said. “Today is in salvage mode. We are securing the site, and we are moving forward with repairs.”
Listeners can visit Magic 101.3’s Facebook page for station updates. Vinny Foo, the programming manager for Magic, said the stream will continue to feature the same music and contests.
“You can continue to get all the hits and hip hop with our free Magic 101.3 app,” Foo said. “Our contests will also continue, like Busch Gardens tickets, which starts on Monday!”
Hurricane Helene roared ashore Thursday night as a powerful Category 4 storm with maximum sustained winds of 140 miles per hour. It made landfall near Perry, Florida, more than 90 miles northwest of Williston, but not before leaving devastation from storm surge and high winds all along the western coast of Florida.
At 6 a.m. Friday morning, Gov. Ron DeSantis reported 83% of Levy County was without power—part of more than 1 million Florida residents who were in the dark overnight. Crews worked through the weekend to restore power to hundreds of thousands of Florida residents.
MARC Media, which owns Magic and Mainstreet Daily News, has other towers that serve its other stations. All the company’s other stations broadcasting from Tower Road—including R&B 94.1, 106.9 I Am Country, Rock It 100.5 and The Beach Gainesville 100.9—are back on the air after storm-related power outages.