Meet Tommy Evans

Earthquake in Kabul

Cynthia@mickware.com — 2009-10-22T18:00:00-07:00

Strong earthquake rocks Afghanistan
Posted: 04:56 PM ET

KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) - A strong earthquake rumbled deep beneath mountainous regions northeast of Kabul early Friday, waking residents and sending some into the streets.

But no serious damage has been reported from the magnitude 6.2 quake, which struck about 12:30 a.m. about 50 miles southeast of Feyzabad, Afghanistan, in a sparsely populated area.

Centered nearly 170 miles down, the earthquake's power was muted on the surface, although was felt lightly as far away as northern India.

CNN's Thomas Evans and Chris Lawrence, both in Kabul, said the quake lasted for nearly 30 seconds and seemed to increase in intensity.

"I had gone to bed about an hour ago and had fallen asleep," Lawrence said. "Woke up instantly to the shaking, which was considerable. I could feel our whole house here in Kabul moving."

"I went out on the roof very soon after," Evans related. "I could hear people gathering outside of their homes but no obvious signs of damage, no smoke or sirens, at least not in the Sherpur district of Kabul."

CNN's Tommy Groves - currently on military reserve duty as Navy Lt. Groves, the U.S. military spokesman in Kabul - said he had received no reports of damage from military posts around the country and had seen none walking around his base in Kabul.

More BackStory in Kandahar

Cynthia@mickware.com — 2009-09-24T14:00:00-07:00

Another look behind the scenes in Kandahar, with "Sir" Tommy and Sarmad giving us some local color:

Length: 2:37

LARGE (30.2 MB) ----- SMALL (3.2 MB)

Sarmad Qasiri's photo

Cynthia@mickware.com — 2009-09-12T06:00:00-07:00

One of the photos taken by cameraman Sarmad Qasiri and posted online:

Filming in Kandahar [UPDATED}

Cynthia@mickware.com — 2009-09-08T14:00:00-07:00

Another cross-post... a look at the filming of a piece in Afghanistan. The guys all wear the local garb, known in Iraq as a salwar kameez and in Afghanistan as a kurta:

Length: 3:07

LARGE (36.0 MB) ----- SMALL (3.7 MB)

This is what Michael Holmes wrote about the piece beforehand in his Facebook note:

Tuesday Note From Michael

Today at 12:02pm

It's always good to hear from my old mate Tommy Evans. Not just because he's a great guy and chief organiser of our Fantasy Football League (gridiron/NFL/American football, that is).

It's also because he's a top producer and just happens to be producing Mr Ware at the moment.

They've already filed some "RON" (run of net) material, but today we got their first BackStory, as they prepared to tape material in Kandahar.

Tommy does a fine job with the Flipcam* as he explains some of the realities of working as a news crew in a city pretty much surrounded by elements of the Taliban. Also, the gals here think Tommy and the lads all look pretty sharp in a Kurta. Google it.

*Correction from the field: Tommy's not rocking the Flipcam - it's the much heavier Sony Z-1. Now you know!

Softball at FOB Hammer

Cynthia@mickware.com — 2009-07-06T14:00:00-07:00

Okay, this one warrants cross-posting, I think...

Length: 3:45

LARGE (43.3 MB) ----- SMALL (4.5 MB)

Happy Birthday wishes

Cynthia@mickware.com — 2009-07-05T13:00:00-07:00

Hope Tommy enjoys a very happy 32nd birthday today. I was late in getting the blogpost up, but it is here.

Another BackStory BackGround

Cynthia@mickware.com — 2009-06-23T14:00:00-07:00

Tommy makes another peripheral appearance on today's BackStory interview with Michael. Good to see both of them again, even if it looks like the lid may soon come off of the situation there. (And what do you want to bet that Tommy was also sporting bare feet under that table?)

BackStory

Cynthia@mickware.com — 2009-04-23T13:00:00-07:00

Frederik Pleitgen filed a BackStory about flying from Baghdad to Kandahar, and so we discover that Tommy is with him. Sounds like it may be a new assignment? The ever-elusive Mr. Evans doesn't step in front of the camera until 4:55 into the clip, but the entire thing is really necessary for understanding what he's up to now.

5:47 --- 66.5MB

BackStory BackGround

Cynthia@mickware.com — 2009-03-27T13:00:00-07:00

This afternoon on BackStory, they spoke with Nic Robertson in the Baghdad bureau. Seated behind him and working diligently throughout the piece ... Tommy Evans. And just in case you didn't notice him, when they posted photos from the show on BackStory's Facebook page, they pointed him out by tagging the photo with his name; when you mouse over that, a box appears over the photo to highlight the man himself:

Thanks to Délie, I can also post a link to the clip itself!

BackStory campaign

Cynthia@mickware.com — 2008-11-11T09:00:00-08:00

Okay, so over on the blog I started a little campaign the other day to get Tommy to do a piece on BackStory. And today, Isha Seshay read from emails that had been sent in by Jodi, Sharon, and myself:

Reaction to Obama election

Cynthia@mickware.com — 2008-11-04T22:00:00-08:00

Posted on the AC360 blog:

Tommy Evans
CNN Iraq Bureau Chief

The limited Iraqi reaction I have gotten so far is a stunned one… It was a very commonly held conspiracy theory that the election was fixed and there was no way a black man would win… But even so at the end of the day they don’t really give a s***… Iraqis are so disillusioned by America they don’t think this changes anything.

VO in Baghdad

Cynthia@mickware.com — 2008-10-18T12:00:00-07:00

Okay, we've had a Tommy sighting-- er, sounding? The ever-sharp Sharon picked up on Tommy doing VO for the Arabic translation for Phil Black's piece about the protests in Baghdad over the latest version of the SoFA:

3.9 MB

Covering Hurricane Ike

Cynthia@mickware.com — 2008-09-13T00:00:00-07:00

In mid-September, Tommy was part of the massive team sent to Texas to cover Hurricane Ike. He posted this on the AC360 blog on September 13th:

Thomas Evans, CNN Producer
Here’s a picture of what we’re dealing as we drive towards the Texas coast. This is the I-10 - 59 Split.

Birthday post

Cynthia@mickware.com — 2008-07-05T00:00:00-07:00

The original page posted for his birthday ... and the blog page for birthday wishes.

In front of the camera

Cynthia@mickware.com — 2008-07-02T00:00:01-07:00

Yes, he has finally followed in the footsteps of Nic Robertson, Peter Bergen, Arwa Damon, etc, and gone in front of the cameras:

Something tells me that won't be the last time we'll see him on that balcony... much as I hate to even think about the Ware/Evans team being split up!

Photo of Baghdad sandstorm

Cynthia@mickware.com — 2008-07-02T00:00:00-07:00

Baghdad, Iraq during the recent sandstorm.

July 2, 2008 at 2pm. Photo CNN's Thomas Evans.

Tommy Beats360

Cynthia@mickware.com — 2008-03-15T00:00:00-07:00

He won the Beat360 competition:

Aussie translator

Cynthia@mickware.com — 2008-02-28T00:00:00-08:00

When Michael dropped some Aussie lingo on Anderson Cooper, Tommy had to step up and act as CNN's unofficial Australian/American translator:

And how did it all come about?

Blog from the Back Row
Posted: 12:24 AM ET
I learned something new tonight in the control room. Two new things actually. I learned the meaning of the Australian words galah and drongo.

These are words that our Baghdad correspondent Michael Ware used on the air at the top of the program while discussing the story of Prince Harry fighting in Afghanistan. We found the words and Michael’s delivery so interesting and amusing (even though we had no idea what they meant) that we decided to make that :09 soundbite our “Shot of the Day” at the end of the program. And it was my job to make that happen.

Isolating the soundbite and having the tape cut and turned around in 30 minutes was the easy part. Finding out what the words meant was a little trickier.

To do this I called our international assignment desk and had them transfer me to Michael’s field producer in Baghdad, Tommy Evans. No, I wasn’t calling for details on troop levels or the progress of the government on deciding how to divide oil revenue or how locals viewed the upcoming U.S. presidential election. I was calling for clarification on the definition and the correct usage of the words galah and drongo.

Tommy found this all very amusing but dutifully got a precise definition and an acceptable sentence usage from Michael.

galah : a type of bird, slang for idiot, as in “you guys are acting like a mob of galahs”
drongo: also a bird, also slang for idiot, as in “don’t be such a bloody drongo”

It’s healthy to have a good laugh every now and again, even if you are working in a war zone. Thanks for being a good sport Tommy.

- Sean Yates, Sr. Producer, AC360

At the Rugby World Cup final

Cynthia@mickware.com — 2007-10-07T00:00:00-07:00

October in Paris during the coverage of the Rugby World Cup, stopping an over-excited fan from tackling Michael during a live shot (while never letting go of his cellphone!):

[The full clip]

Greeting the Iranian Ambassador to Iraq

Cynthia@mickware.com — 2007-09-07T00:00:00-07:00

Here he is on the right, greeting the Iranian ambassador during an interview back in September:

[The full clip]

On March 2, 2008, the footage was used again, and this time full-screen:

[The full clip]

Podcast: Covering Iraq

Cynthia@mickware.com — 2007-05-01T00:00:00-07:00

CNN's Steve Kastenbaum has a frank conversation with CNN correspondent Michael Ware and his producer Thomas Evans about their experiences covering the war in Iraq.

 Part 1 (5:19)
Part 2 (4:01)

AC360 Blog: Call to prayer, silence, then 'boom'

Cynthia@mickware.com — 2006-07-21T00:00:00-07:00

Call to prayer, silence, then 'boom'

There was a moment last night, as we were preparing for the program, when it was so peaceful and quiet that I could have been convinced the war had ended. We were on a balcony overlooking downtown Beirut; the first call to prayer was sounding.

We had been in Beirut for 20 hours and this was the first time I remember hearing the call. I am sure that's because it was the first time I was able to focus on it.

We flew in yesterday morning on a Marine chopper, landing on the embassy grounds. Within minutes, before we had even moved away from the landing pad, the helicopter lifted off with a group of evacuees inside. Many of the Americans on board were far too young to really understand what was happening. Little boys seemed torn between fear and the excitement of getting to dress up in a military helmet and life vest.

As we drove south from the embassy towards the center of the city, the cars in the northbound lane were bumper-to-bumper. Our driver explained that people were literally heading for the hills, the mountains in northern Lebanon, to wait out the war. It was the first time I'd heard someone wish the war would end soon and not sound like they believed it would.

Beirut really is lovely, quite possibly the most beautiful city in the Middle East, even with very apparent and still open scars from this conflict, and the conflicts that have come before. People here always seem to be whispering conspiracy theories; some think that once all the foreigners leave, the real shelling will begin. It's a frightening thought if you've seen pictures of what has already been done to the Hezbollah stronghold in the southern suburbs.

On the balcony last night, the illusion of peace ended a few minutes after the call to prayer, as the silence was smashed by a massive explosion to the south.

Posted By Thomas Evans, CNN Producer: 4:08 PM ET

AC360 Blog: This is their lives

Cynthia@mickware.com — 2006-07-17T00:00:00-07:00

This is their lives

I had just put down my lunch plate from the hotel buffet when the first siren went off. I never took a bite, and I am just realizing, I never paid either.

We scrambled out onto the hotel restaurant's balcony, where we could see most of Haifa spread out down the hill below us.

The scary thing about rocket strikes is that even with the siren sounding you can't see them coming. No streak of fire across the sky. Not a lot of sound. That is, not until the thump when it hits.

This time, the thump was very close, and soon, a plume of thick white smoke started to rise. Within a few minutes, we jumped into our van and tore down the hill.

The site was pure chaos -- filled with police, EMTs, onlookers, and of course, the throng of world press. Bullhorns were blasting and photographers snapped endlessly at the blast-splattered building.

Then, just as we felt we had a grasp of the scene around us, the siren sounded again. The crowd went from pushing and shoving in the street to huddling together under any cover we could find.

I found myself squeezed in a boarded-up shop doorway with a cop and a photographer. A second dull thud and a second sprint to the van. By then, we were all drenched in sweat. Summer in Israel really isn't body armor weather.

This strike felt very different. The first rocket hit an unoccupied office building. This one hit a more residential neighborhood.

I watched as the apartment building slowly started to catch fire. I saw a man holding a woman in the alley behind me. She was shaking violently in his arms as he tried to console her.

I've never blogged before, so forgive me if this rambles. But as we rushed off to feed tape and throw the rest of our gear in the van to make the next flight to the next story, I am still thinking of that couple, people for whom this war isn't dramatic pictures and adrenaline.

When the crowds leave the neighborhood, this tale won't be just another story running on tonight's news. For the countless innocent people in Israel and Lebanon, this is their lives.

Posted By Thomas Evans, CNN Producer: 2:43 PM ET