This is that tape.
What Is This Thing
A six-hour RCA T-120 Hi-Fi from the Sunbury Collection, recorded in EP mode in April 1999. Cleveland ABC affiliate WEWS Channel 5 is the source. The recording pulls from four networks in a single sitting: ABC, FOX 8, and whatever WCPO was feeding through the wire at 5 AM.
The Century: America’s Time
Peter Jennings. Fifteen-part ABC News documentary series that originally ran on The History Channel in April 1999. Chronicles the defining events of the 20th century, segment by segment. This copy is off WEWS, the first television station in Ohio. Both WEWS and WCPO were E.W. Scripps properties, which is part of why the tornado feed ended up here.
April 9, 1999: WCPO Tornado Coverage
The Blue Ash F4. Pre-dawn. Hamilton County into Warren County. Communities hit: Blue Ash, Montgomery, Sycamore Township, Symmes Township, Loveland. Four fatalities. Sixty-five injuries. Part of a broader outbreak across April 8-9.
WEWS rebroadcast the WCPO live coverage the same night. That broadcast has not turned up anywhere online. No YouTube uploads, nothing on the Internet Archive. WCPO has published anniversary articles in 2019 and 2024, but the original live footage has not surfaced publicly. This off-air recording may be the only copy that exists outside whatever the station kept internally.
Two moments worth flagging: at 2:19:00, a segment where the anchor explains you can get storm alerts on your personal pager, or email. At 2:24:00, the weather radar software crashes live on air. Windows 95. An application called Fast95 throws an illegal operation error in the middle of live tornado tracking. That’s on tape.
CinciNow.com
During the broadcast, an ad runs for CinciNow.com, E.W. Scripps’ Cincinnati internet portal launched in 1998. The trademark was cancelled in 2007. Zero video presence online. If that commercial exists anywhere else, nobody has found it.
Maury and Oprah
FOX 8 Cleveland carries a Maury sextuplets episode, likely featuring the Dilley sextuplets, born May 1993, the first surviving sextuplets in North America. A TV movie about the family came out that same month. Oprah follows, partial. Individual episodes from both shows in this era are among the hardest things to find in any archive.
Commercial Inventory
Late 90s Cleveland and Cincinnati market, spring 1999.
- America Online 4.0
- Suave Ultra Dry
- Country Crock
- Dr. Frankenstein Eggo
- Seaman’s 24-hour sale
- Mrs. T’s Pierogies
- Basista Furniture warehouse sale – local, partial; confirmed not found online
- CinciNow.com – E.W. Scripps Cincinnati internet portal; confirmed lost media
Lost Media on This Tape
Four confirmed items:
- WCPO Blue Ash F4 tornado live coverage (April 9, 1999) – original broadcast not found anywhere online
- Windows 95 crash on WCPO weather radar (Fast95) – on-air software failure during live tornado tracking
- CinciNow.com commercial – E.W. Scripps Cincinnati portal, no video found online
- Maury sextuplets episode (1999) – individual Maury episodes from this era almost never preserved
This tape streamed on 90s Craig on February 22-24, 2026. Watch live every Thursday on Twitch.