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Over here on the Best Coast, we think we have natural disaster reporting locked down, what with fire season, mudslide season and occasionally disastrous quakes. But reporters on the east coast are showing us up this week.
Take WTTG-TV reporter Tucker Barnes, who gave live updates on Hurricane Irene yesterday from the boardwalk Ocean City, Maryland, while covered in some mysterious, disgusting, probably poisonous foam.
The local Fox affiliate said the foam was "organic material," a toxic mix of pollution and cyanobacteria, that was "most likely the effects of raw sewage pouring into the water during the storm."
Barnes could have gotten his cameraman to film the foam and done live reporting from somewhere less toxic, but Barnes is pretty hardcore. He wanted to make you feel so close to the action that you could taste it.
"It doesn't taste great," he said.
He said it had a sandy consistency and added, "I can tell you first-hand, it doesn't smell great."
Here's the video: