President Obama is scheduled to comment on the disaster in Oklahoma at 10 AM and it is likely that all of the broadcast networks will break into regular programming to cover it.  ”CBS This Morning” went into the 9 AM hour to cover the fallout. We hear that “CTM” will stay live until 12 PM on the east coast covering the damage, and 10 AM pacific.

Update: “Our prayers are with the people of Oklahoma today,” Obama said. “Oklahoma needs to get everything that it needs right away.”

“If there is hope to hold onto, not just in Oklahoma but around the country, it is the knowledge that the good people there in Oklahoma are more prepared than most, and what they can be certain about is that Americans around the country will be right there with them,” he added.

Meanwhile, the news channels are sending their A-teams to Oklahoma to cover the fallout from the tornado.

As we noted yesterday, NBC has Brian Williams,  Lester Holt, Ann Curry, Harry Smith, Kate Snow, Anne Thompson and Dr. Nancy Snyderman in Oklahoma, as well as the Weather Channel team of Jim Cantore, Mike Bettes, and Mike Seidel.

ABC News has Sam Champion, Ginger Zee, David Muir and Alex Perez in Oklahoma. Byron Pitts, Mike Boettcher, and Cecilia Vega are also either in Moore or en route.

CBS has Norah O’Donnell anchoring from Moore, and Anna Werner on the ground, and Scott Pelley will anchor the “CBS Evening News” there this evening.
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All three evening newscasts were expanded Monday after a pair of explosions killed at least two people at the finish line of the Boston Marathon.

The newscasts began shortly after President Obama addressed the nation from the White House press briefing room at 6:10pmET. NBC’s Brian Williams, ABC’s Diane Sawyer and CBS’ Scott Pelley had been anchoring coverage on their respective networks since the news broke shortly after 3pmET. ABC News and NBC News took brief breaks from their respective special reports just before the official start of the evening newscasts at 6:30pmET.

CBS News had Terrell Brown reporting from the scene and Don Dahler reporting from Massachusetts General Hospital. At the beginning of “Evening News,” correspondent John Miller took a few minutes to “clarify all these reports we’re seeing about a suspect in the media.” Saying he wanted to “proceed very carefully from here on out,” Miller reported that the person who was detained is a Saudi national who was seen running from the scene. “That may mean a lot, that may mean nothing at all,” Miller cautioned, noting that many people were running away from the blasts.

On NBC News, Williams was joined by Katy Tur in Boston, Chuck Todd from Washington D.C. and Pete Williams on the Boston police investigation. Williams interviewed an eyewitness, Serdar Ozturk, who saw the explosion from the finish line. “People’s faces instantly changed from smile to tears, and fear,” he told Williams. “People started running for their lives.”

ABC News had reports from senior national correspondent Jim Avila, senior Justice correspondent Pierre Thomas and Linsey Davis from the scene. Sawyer also checked in with Alex Perez in Chicago and Cecelia Vega in Los Angeles about security precautions in place in those two cities. “World News” ended with a montage of still photos from the scene. “We thank you so much for watching tonight,” Sawyer said. “Boston, as you know, is one of America’s great cities, filled with resilience and spirit. So on this day, when something terrible happened, we wanted to remind you of all those who rushed to help.”

All three networks have more extended coverage planned. Williams will anchor a special report at 10pmET on NBC, Terry Moran will anchor “Nightline” live at 12:35amET on ABC, and Pelley remained on the air with “Evening News” through 8pmET.

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“Diane Sawyer and her Hidden America team have done it again — shining a new light on stories of violence, struggle and hope in Chicago while searching for answers to one of the most vexing problems facing our country,” ABC News president Ben Sherwood said in a statement.

The reports air Thursday and Friday on “World News” and Friday on “Nightline.”

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Sawyer previewed the segment by saying “Tonight ABC News has learned that arson could be to blame” for the fires, throwing to a packaged story from reporter Alex Perez.

Perez said “The FBI and local authorities have yet to pinpoint what started the wild fire, but in an exclusive interview the county undersheriff tells us investigators believe this was arson,” featuring a brief clip of undersheriff Paula Presley saying “This in many ways is a type of terrorism, where someone is trying to destroy an entire city.”

In a statement, the El Paso County Sheriff’s Department took issue with the report: “The comments that ABC chose to air during the broadcast were taken out of context and misrepresented the facts. The cause of this fire is not yet known.” The full statement is after the jump.

ABC News said in a statement: “The introduction to the report notes that arson ‘could be to blame’ and the report says clearly that ‘FBI and local authorities have yet to pinpoint what started the wild fire.’ The rest of the report should have been consistent. We regret this and a full transcript of the sheriff’s remarks has been posted online and our subsequent report on GMA clarified this further.”

The full transcript of the interview shows that Presley repeatedly said that the origin of the fire needs to be investigated before any conclusions can be drawn. The closest she came to suggesting arson could be to blame was this statement:

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Perez joins ABC News from WMAQ, the NBC-owned local station in Chicago, where he has been a reporter and anchor for six years. In a memo to staffers, Sherwood called Perez “a skilled and energetic reporter who understands the power of words and images.” He will spend the next few weeks in New York before returning to Chicago.

Perez is the third recent ABC News hire from NBC Chicago. He joins former WMAQ colleagues Ginger Zee, who is the “Good Morning America” weekend meteorologist, and Paula Faris, who is the co-anchor of “World News Now,” at ABC. The three ABC hires have the added benefit of pulling top talent from an NBC station, which competes with ABC-owned WLS in the Chicago market.

Read the full memo from Sherwood after the jump.

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