By Javier Aparisi, producer, miami bureau, 24 May 2005

The view from the 11th floor can be spectacular as well as terrifying. The BBC Miami bureau sits in the heart of the Coral Gables district.

A careful look towards the east reveals the Coconut Grove shoreline. On a nice day the sun sets slowly in a huge orange fireball.

But things can turn quickly in this semi-tropical paradise. In 2004 we had four near misses from hurricanes that went on to wreak havoc and destruction elsewhere in Florida. I can recall an evening broadcast being suspended a few years ago because of water seeping through the windows amid high winds in a tropical storm.

Because we are a small office we tend to mingle without distinction for whatever part of the World Service we are working for.

Weather threats

I have an affinity for scuba diving from our local beaches in southern Florida. Several colleagues have taken the plunge with me in recent years, taking the long swim out to the reefs on Hollywood beach. Last summer we got a little more adventurous with a night dive in search of lobsters but came back empty-handed due to sonar malfunction and engine trouble. The worst of it came later with the endless jokes from colleagues who opted out of the trip.

Despite the weather threats and other distractions we manage to carry on with our business. The fact that we broadcast programmes and news bulletins from here gives the office a different feel from a simple newsgathering bureau. The Miami office was inaugurated in 1996 with a five-hour daily broadcast in Spanish to Latin America.

I came on board as a freelance and later formally joined the BBC as a local staffer. Then I had a stint as Argentina bilingual correspondent from 1998-2000. By the time I came back to Miami the Spanish online operation was a reality.

After starting out as a pure radio operation through the Spanish language broadcast, the Miami office has seen online grow rapidly in the past three years. Following a protracted office and studio expansion, we broadcast our first Spanish language interactive programme, BBC Enlace, in April this year.

Live two-ways

When we worked on the BBC Internacional show a four-person team would gather in mid afternoon as we took over the 24-hour news cycle from London. Now the same number of people work on BBC Enlace, maximising the synergies between radio and online. However, pure radio remains a mainstay with a separate news bulletin and live two-ways with rebroadcasters.

Immediate feedback has become the norm in a way that would have never been possible with BBC Internacional. Web readers on bbcmundo.com can suggest interview topics for BBC Enlace and ask questions on the air through telephone call backs. Thanks to our new regular two-ways with our main rebroadcasters, we know our material is getting the air play it deserves.

The hurricane season will soon be upon us again and we have no idea what nature may have in store for us. But after all of the changes we have gone through in the last few months we feel confident the BBC office in Miami will go on, no matter what the fickle winds decide.

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