RUTLAND, Vt. -Some of them needed generators, others kerosene. Some wanted to know how many others were in the dark, or which streets were passable. Some just needed to hear a voice.

“This is Glendora,” one caller said. “I’m a little nervous. The laundromat across my window here, the whole sign just completely came out of its case off and is flying over the street right now.”

The power was out, she told Terry Jaye, who was taking calls on WJJR. Her house was shaking from the high winds and it had no heat. She didn’t know who else to call.

“Only thing I have is my CD disc radio, listening to you guys, and a cell phone,” she said.

When a ferocious nor’easter blew chaos into Rutland last Monday, she and others turned to WJJR. With the lights out, televisions silenced and personal computers powerless, the 50,000-watt local radio station shucked its adult contemporary music format and turned over its airwaves to listeners, giving and getting information about problems big and small.

It wasn’t the first time local radio proved itself the go-to medium in time of crisis.

It happened when ice storms ravaged northern New England in 1998, it happened when Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast in 2005, it happened Monday after 70 mph winds from a nor’easter blew chaos into this small Vermont city.

When the lights go out and Google is unavailable, radio is.

“Part of it goes back to the technology,” said former radio news director Suzanne Goucher, president of the Maine Association of Broadcasters. “People aren’t likely to have battery-powered TVs in their home, but everybody’s got a car radio. What you’re left with is the old reliable standby of radio. It’s always on and it’s always on when you need it.”

It was on at 7:30 a.m. Monday, when the winds ripped into town, snapping utility poles, blowing trees into houses and collapsing power lines in the streets. Soon, the switchboard at WJJR’s studios in a downtown office building began lighting up.

The calls came from New York, Vermont and New Hampshire.

Don called to say a front window in his Victorian home had “imploded.” Michelle from West Rutland called to say she had no power and no telephone service. Millie’s power was out, and her back yard was full of fallen trees.

“It’s horrible. It hit my ex-husband’s car,” she said.

“A lot of women would be happy if it hit their ex-husband’s car,” Jaye replied.

Some people called to pass on information about impassable streets. One was looking for a pet hotel. Another warned about the hazards of operating a generator indoors.

Jaye, 52, a veteran radio personality with a soothing voice and the patience of a traffic cop, was in his element.

“I had a lady call about a generator, which she needed for her husband’s oxygen tank,” he said Tuesday, taking a break from the microphone. “A friend of hers called the next morning to tell us that within 40 minutes of that call, a man from Springfield was on his way to her house with a generator. You hear stuff like that and go “How cool is that?’

“That’s as important as it gets,” he said.

The only breaks came when there were studio guests. Mayor Christopher Louras, Fire Chief Robert Schlachter, police Officer Tim Tuttle and utility company spokesman Steve Costello all made appearances, eager to get word out about the condition of the city and the severity of the outages.

“We have 1,000 trees down,” said Schlachter, asking callers not to bother reporting downed trees that posed no hazard. “If it’s against a car, or you see arcing and sparking or someone in a car, let us know.”

All that day and into Tuesday, as utility crews raced to address downed power lines and crippled substations, lines remained open.

Sometimes, the information they got was erroneous, and later corrected. Rutland Regional Medical Center was said to be open only for emergencies; soon after, Jaye corrected himself, saying anyone with an appointment there should go to it.

And there were callers like the one from Forest Dale, who lost power and reported winds howling “like a train” outside his home but appreciated having someone on the air.

“Boy, this is a real case for having radio stations that are staffed by actual live people. Thanks to you guys for getting into work and getting on the air,” he told Jaye.

On Tuesday afternoon, WJJR started easing back into its normal format, as power began returning to many of the 50,000 homes and businesses in Rutland and elsewhere that had lost it.

Brian Collamore, 56, of sister station WSYB, also worked the impromptu storm-a-thon with Jaye and studio sidekick Nanci Gordon. He called situations like it the reason he got into radio in the first place.

“Satellite radio can’t do this. TV can’t do this. The Internet can’t do this. When push comes to shove, and you’re in a situation like this, this is the only medium that can do this,” he said.

AP-ES-04-21-07 1222EDT