Hi,
I am shooting a non-profit documentary for a local museum and am in need of some stock footage--specifically footage of a hurricane/huge waves hitting a coastal town and some generic 1950s hustle and bustle town life.

I tried searching for stuff in the public domain using the National Archives Web site at www.archives.org but...damn...waaay too much information on that site. I got lost and gave up. It also appears that I'd have to make a trip to DC just to check out some of that footage. Is that true?

What about my local news stations? Could they have footage that I could use? How would I approach them?

How do you guys do it???

http://www.bbcfootage.com/

Use Google, my friend. I just did a search for "news footage" and a bajillion sites came up.

Search film or video stock agency. Some local historical societies have good collections of film and film transferred to video. Don't expect the footage on DV. Most of the film was transferred when 3/4 U-matic was king. You'll also find some of Beta SP and higher.