Hurricane Katrina After Hurricane Katrina struck Greater New Orleans on August 29, 2005, WVUE temporarily moved its operations to the studios of sister station WALA-TV in Mobile, Alabama. WVUE's facility on Norman C. Francis Parkway (Jefferson Davis Parkway before 2020) is located in a low-lying part of New Orleans that was badly flooded due to the levee failures caused by Katrina. The damage that was caused to the building was so severe that Emmis released much of the station's on-air staff from their non-compete clauses, allowing them to seek employment outside of the market without penalty. Soon, meteorologist Crystal Wicker left for Indianapolis ABC affiliate WRTV, where she began work on October 3. Weekend meteorologist Jeff Baskin went to Portland, Oregon's KOIN-TV; reporter Summer Jackson went to Chicago to work at CLTV, while reporter Kerry Cavanaugh took a job at WBAL-TV in Baltimore. Following the storm, WVUE presented a rotating 15-minute newscast that was streamed on its website and was produced out of WALA's studios, slowly restoring the station's regular schedule as developments faded and reconstruction on WVUE's news operations continued. WVUE later resumed its over-the-air broadcasts from a low-power transmitter as an alternate site, which provided a reduced signal that did not reach most of the market; the station's analog signal was upgraded to full power on September 19, 2005, from its transmitter facility in Chalmette, which had flooded during the storm. In mid-June 2006, construction of the station's permanent news set and weather center was completed. Before then, a temporary news set and newsroom were set up in the station's production room. Station manager Vanessa Oubre said that remodeling/reconstruction of the rest of the building was expected to be completed by November 2006. The sale of the station was also affected and was delayed for two years because of the rebuilding; Emmis had intended to divest all its television assets by the start of 2007, but retained ownership of WVUE in the interim until a buyer was found. Purchase by Tom Benson On May 5, 2008, Emmis Communications announced an agreement to sell the station to the Louisiana Media Company, a media group founded by Tom Benson (owner of the city's two major league sports franchises, the NFL's New Orleans Saints and the NBA's New Orleans Pelicans) for $41 million. Benson stated that he planned for the new company to acquire several radio and television stations nationwide and