By Thursday Garland Robinette was back on air, from the new location in Baton Rouge.

What was usually a local news station had become one of the only ways to learn what was happening as the country's worst natural disaster unfolded.

Thanks to an “unprecedented” partnership with their competitors, WWL's content was now being heard across the dial on almost all FM, AM and shortwave stations in the New Orleans area.

It was also being heard widely across the US, after permission was given for any other network to retransmit coverage. Listeners across the world were streaming coverage online.

“We're broadcasting at like two o'clock in the morning and Diane came in and she said, 'Go to lines two, three, and four - Sweden, Australia, Africa',” recalls Garland.

“And I said, 'Right. Do we have anybody on?' And she said, 'Yeah - Sweden, Africa, and Australia.'”

Having been away from the airwaves while he escaped New Orleans, Garland had had the opportunity to listen to a lot of WWL's coverage in his car.

Hearing the suffering and the pleas for help was making him angry.

“I didn't really care what I said. I didn't care if the ratings went up or down or sideways. I was furious,” he says, reflecting back on that time.

He railed against the slow response by the federal government, telling listeners President George W Bush's administration had failed the people of New Orleans.

“This is war,” he said repeatedly, as he spoke to callers and officials.

The city was pleading for salvation, but the official response had been slow, and lives were being lost.

Diane was keen to get an interview with the city's Mayor Ray Nagin and began texting him repeatedly.

“We were begging Mayor Nagin to use us - to use the powerful signal of WWL to talk to the people trying to survive this tragedy, and to talk to leaders around the country,” she says.

And so he did, phoning the studio number direct and talking to Garland.

Nagin told listeners he'd spoken to President Bush and the head of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff, asking for help:

“I keep hearing that it's coming - this is coming, that is coming - and my answer to that today is where is the beef? Because there is no beef in this city, there is no beef anywhere in south-east Louisiana and these goddam ships that are coming, I don't see them.”

As the call progressed, Mayor Nagin's tenor became more urgent, more passionate.

“You know, God is looking down on all this, and if they are not doing everything in their power to save people, they are going to pay the price.

“Because every day that we delay, people are dying and they're dying by the hundreds,” he said.