Hurricane

During his two hour show tonight, anchored from outside Fox News headquarters, Geraldo Rivera got personal. After doing a Q&A with his younger brother Craig Rivera, Geraldo said that his 92-year-old mother, who had been staying with him, was moved inland to Craig Rivera’s home. But now that Craig is reporting on the storm, she’s staying with his sister… whose name just happens to be Irene.

“It is a very extraordinary situation, ladies and gentlemen, when you are used to reporting these storms hitting somebody else. When it is somebody else’s family involved you can report objectively and swagger and do everything you have to do to get the story. But with your family it is divided attention,” Rivera said, adding that keeping track of his 5 kids is like “herding cats.” Rivera’s wife and young daughters are staying at a Times Square hotel “on a low floor.”

Earlier in the show, Rivera said his son Cruz was “standing by on my dock.” Rivera is an avid sailor.

As we told you yesterday, CNBC is planning all day coverage of Hurricane Irene tomorrow from 6am-11pm. Anchor Michelle Caruso-Cabrera gets the first shift at 6am. And earlier she Tweeted her sleeping arrangements at CNBC HQ in Englewood Cliffs, NJ.

By popular demand: Air-Mattress Sweet Air-Mattress. I’m live on #CNBC 6am-9am tomorrow. #irene will be on top of NYC.

Earlier, Caruso-Cabrera reported that 110 air mattresses and three tankers of potable water had been delivered to CNBC.

Brian Williams anchored a one-hour “Nightly News” again tonight. Williams, who anchored from the Jersey Shore last night, was in his New York studio tonight. While many affiliates may have passed on taking the second half hour, the entire show was simulcast on MSNBC. In addition to correspondents along the East Coast, Harry Smith did a live shot from Times Square, where most everything is shut down, saying about a crowd that had gathered to watch: “They have determined that we are in fact the only attraction worth paying any attention to.”

David Muir anchored “World News.” Similar to Smith’s report on NBC, Diane Sawyer walked the streets of Times Square — right in front of ABC’s studios — with the New York City angle. GMA’s Sam Champion was in Battery Park.

Anthony Mason was in anchoring the CBS “Evening News” which also devoted the entire show to Irene.

Chris Lawrence is usually at the Pentagon for CNN. Today he’s in the Chesapeake Bay. Not near it. In it.

Lawrence is reporting from Chesapeake Beach, MD where Hurricane Irene’s full force will be paying a visit in a few hours. After Lawrence wrapped up his 6pmET report, anchor Wolf Blitzer brought in Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley. The first words out of O’Malley’s mouth: “Hey, Wolf, do me a favor. Tell Chris to get the hell out of that water, would ya?”

“Yea, I’ll tell him,” said Blitzer.

Irene be damned. Bob Schieffer isn’t going to let a little rain get in the way of him taking a test drive of his new set for “Face the Nation.” That’s him earlier today (left). Tomorrow he’s got Gen. Colin Powell on the show. Should be interesting considering what former VP Dick Cheney has written about him. Hurricane Irene coverage will likely preempt the show in many markets, including New York. So CBS is planning to live stream the show on CBSNews.com. “CBS Sunday Morning” and “CBS Evening News” will also be live streamed.

Former Weather Channel meteorologist Alexandra Steele is back on the air — on CNN — covering Hurricane Irene. She’s fronting weather and travel reports as well as iReport roundups. Steele was among several Weather Channel on-air talent who were let go last year. Steele has been doing fill-in work on CNN since earlier this year.

Hurricane Irene made landfall around 8:30amET this morning near Cape Lookout, NC and the Category 1 hurricane continues its march north. That’s the Weather Channel’s Mike Seidel (left) in Nags Head on MSNBC this morning. “It’s a wild morning on the Outer Banks, and we’re not out of the woods yet,” said Seidel

Fox News’s Greta Van Susteren was supposed to be on a sailing trip yesterday. That was scrapped and she returned to host her show last night. All day on FNC, Shepard Smith will be trading off hours with Bill Hemmer and Martha MacCallum. Smith from 9am-Noon, 2pm-4pm and 7pm-9pm and Hemmer and MacCallum from Noon-2pm and 4pm-7pm.

• Here are the other cable news weekend plans

MSNBC has brought in former NBC Weatherplus Meteorologist Jeff Ranieri for weekend coverage. Ranieri is now chief met at NBC station KNTV in San Francisco/San Jose

Around 9:30am, the cable news networks carried a news conference from New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Most of the models have the storm on top of the New York metropolitan area tomorrow morning, with landfall just east of the city.

After getting some criticism for staying in infomercial and other taped programming on recent weekends, CNBC is going wall-to-wall for Hurricane Irene coverage Sunday. CNBC will be live from 6am-11pmET Sunday, when Irene is expected to be hammering the New Jersey, New York and New England coasts. Making matters more challenging, CNBC is based in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, which means some New York City-based employees may have to hunker down in Jersey for the weekend. CNBC’s Melissa Lee and Carl Quintanilla will host Sunday’s primetime special from 8pm-11pm.

“NBC Nightly News” is going to expand to an hour tonight. As we mentioned earlier, Brian Williams will anchor from the Jersey Shore, which is under a mandatory evacuation as Hurricane Irene approaches. NBC News has the resources of the Weather Channel, and is planning to use Bryan Norcross and Jim Cantore in the broadcast as well as seven NBC News correspondents stationed up and down the East Coast.

ABC’s “World News with Diane Sawyer” will include reports from Weather Editor Sam Champion and a team of correspondents. Tonight’s “Nightline” will be all about Irene, with an updated West Coast version. And on Sunday, George Stephanopoulos and Robin Roberts will anchor a special 3-hour edition of “Good Morning America” from Times Square beginning at 7am. “GMA” weekend anchors Dan Harris and Bianna Golodryga also report.

CBS’s Scott Pelley will be in for “Evening News” tonight anchoring from Battery Park City, which is in Zone A of the NYC evacuation zone. He’ll be back Sunday morning for a special 11amET newscast when the storm is expected to be over the Tri-State area. This follows “Sunday Morning” and “Face the Nation” which will also cover the storm.

It’s all hands on deck for the cable news networks, even though many of those hands will be in the path of Hurricane Irene (satellite image above from 2:17pmET.)

• Fox News is planning to preempt the business block tomorrow from 10am-NoonET as well as “Huckabee,” and Jeanine Pirro tomorrow night. “Fox & Friends” goes on an hour early. And Shepard Smith will be in to anchor much of the weekend coverage.

• CNN, which has its weekend programming originate from Atlanta, is planning extended coverage Saturday night from 8pmET-Midnight anchored by Kyra Phillips (whose fiance John Roberts is covering Irene from the Outer Banks for FNC) and Martin Savidge. Wolf Blitzer will anchor a 3-hour “Situation Room” from Washington Saturday from 5pm-8pmET. (Regular weekend night anchor Don Lemon is in Philadelphia where he’ll do a Q&A with TVNewser’s Gail Shister at the annual NLGJA conference tomorrow.) CNN is back on the air at 5am Sunday with T.J. Holmes, Candy Crowley picks up at 9am and NoonET, Fredricka Whitfield as usual in the afternoons and Sunday night programming from 6pmET-Midnight with Randi Kaye and Savidge.

• MSNBC’s Chris Jansing will anchor “Hardball” tonight at 5pm & 7pm, with a Hurricane focus. Thomas Roberts is on from 10pmET-Midnight. The network, which normally goes to tape on Saturdays and Sundays at NoonET will be in extended coverage all weekend. Veronica De La Cruz anchors early mornings, Alex Witt anchors until Noon, Tamron Hall from Noon-5pmET, Jansing from 5-10pmET and Roberts picks up at 10pm.

And it will be an especially long weekend for all the newsers who live and work in New York City. Mass transit (subways, buses, commuter railroads) in New York City and the suburbs will be shut down as of Noon tomorrow.