As the East Coast braced this afternoon for Hurricane Irene, TV news outlets mustered their resources to cover the storm’s landfall, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The networks had different approaches to today’s brief speech by President Obama on the hurricane.

According to the story: “NBC, ABC and CBS pre-empted their programming to air his short address, in which he announced that he’d spoken to governors of affected states and asked people to heed evacuation warnings. Fox, however, remained on an episode of ‘The Dr. Oz Show.’”

The story notes that Fox is unlike the other three networks in that it does not have a news division.

On cable, all the major news networks were devoting extensive airtime to coverage of Irene. The Weather Channel, which said it was focusing on the hurricane “24/7 for the foreseeable future,” was enjoying a bump in ratings, THR reported separately. Weather.com, meanwhile, saw a surge in traffic.