Storm warnings vs. Olympic coverage

The BBQ Pit
#1

As I write this there continue to be serious storms in the NE part of Kansas. I am in Topeka.

We have had severe thunderstorm and tornado warnings. I went to the basement for a while, as advised. There continue to be flash flood warnings in the city.

The local NBC affiliate, KSNT, has been on the air most of the time with storm advisories, as their area of coverage is not just Topeka and Shawnee county, but for several cities and towns around. So although the worst seems over for Topeka, there is a tornado warning for Lawrence(home of the University of Kansas).

The anchor and the weatherman have been cool, and several times have apologized for having to blank out Olympic coverage, but explain that storm warnings and human lives are more important. Apparently they have been getting calls and complaints about interfering with the Olympic coverage.

WTF? I love the Olympics, and am disappointed that I am missing some of the gymnastics finals, but I sure as hell like being alive and safe more! What is wrong with the self-centered idiots that would rather watch sports than have their neighbors be advised to go to safety? And just now I hear that there is yet another warning to our WEST, which means Topeka may be getting some more stuff in about twenty minutes.

Idiots. Grumble, grumble.

#2

I agree with your valuing of human life over sport- but my gripe is with the networks.

A little message across the bottom of the screen, along with a high pitched, very annoying noise, can also serve the same purpose. This could get the warning out and then, I know this sounds absolutely insane, but if they wanted to give personal coverage and an explanation they could DO IT DURING THE COMMERCIALS. If those sanctimonious network fucks really cared about human lives, they would be willing to give up the revenue from commercials to give the information. I just can’t stand it when the media takes the “high and mighty” stance on an issue, attempting to claim they care about anything, at all, in the slightest, besides ratings and money. There are almost no, and I repeat no, journalists with any integrity left in this nation. Those that have it are the ones who are out in some other country who get the film so some snobby pre-madonna in the studio can pretend that they give a crap.

This is especially annoying when, at least where I live, 99% of the people have cable and if they REALLY cared about the weather, or breaking news, they could turn to The Weather Channel or CNN.

BTW- I hope everything is ok for you and your family, storms scare the heck out of me, especially tornado warnings.

#3

Which is precisely what my local NBC affiliate did during a season finale of West Wing.

#4

Actually, you even just had a tornado touch down just west of Topeka, so the grumblings are even more so out-of-place.

That being said, I also find it annoying that they remove all warnings from commercials.

#5

Lissa, I appreciate your concern for my safety, but I beg to differ with you on the attitudes of the local station figures. The weatherman is a good guy, and I know the anchor personally, she’s a relative of mine. Neither of them can be characterized as a “snobby pre-madonna.”

It was the decision of the local station, not the network, to do the kind of detailed personal coverage they gave. The Weather Channel and CNN are good, but couldn’t do what the local station did. The CBS affiliate had a lot of on screen time too, as well as the streaming at the bottom of the screen.

But as I said, I am greatful for your concern. Where do you live/(ballpark?) Living in the Midwest storm warnings, including tornado warnings, make me wary and concerned, but we learn how to deal with them in school and so on.

#6

We interrupt this rant to bring you an important message.

ARGH!!

It’s prima donna, not pre-madonna!!

We now return you to your regularly scheduled rant.

#7

I have the same reaction when a storm is either far west of us, or already passed to the east but still interrupts my tv viewing. My late mother liked to parrot the maxim: If it doesn’t directly affect you, it’s easy to dismiss it as an inconvenience.

#8

I like pre-madonna. It makes me fond of the 1970s . . . .
:smiley:

Baker, hope you and the kitties are doing OK over there!

#9

The Indy 500 was during a major thunderstorm in my area. We saw bits and pieces of the race. They used almost all of the commercial time AND a significant portion of the race time to show weather. For a while they were bouncing back and forth between full screen weather (mostly, I think, during commercials) and splitscreen weather/race. I thought that they should have substituted a graphic stating Lap X of 250(or however many laps there are). Afterall, it was tricky to see anything going on in the race when it was small and had no sound.

There again, the weather man kept apologizing for not showing the race and emphasizing what a big fan of racing he was. Made me cranky. I understood why they weren’t showing more of the race, even if I would have preferred to watch race footage rather than bad weather coverage. I didn’t need it repeated And of course, I would have preferred it even more if the bad weather itself could have occurred at some other time or place.

#10

Bless your NBC affiliate for cutting over. I can always count on The Weather Channel, right when we’re experiencing tornado warnings, to circumvent Your Local Forcast On The 8s in favor of their useless Storm Stories. A tornado could be plowing through subdivisions and they’d be retelling what happened to a boat in the Pacific back in '88.

#11

Oh, I knew what the correct form was. That was why I was sure to put quotes around the term Lissa used, so one could tell it wasn’t me who said it! :smiley:

It’s sunny outside now, but when I arrived at work at 4:30AM this morning(I work in our library) there was a dog outside the door, a big German Shepherd, who acted as if he were a guard dog and growled when I approached. I could see he had tags, so maybe he was spooked by the storm the night before and had got lost. I couldn’t get in to work for quite a while, until the dog finally left. But I heard later he came back and was taken to the pound.

#12

Aw, jeeze! slaps forehead I can’t believe I did that. . . . Uhhh . . . it wasn’t me. It was my evil twin. She looks just like me. The only way you can tell us apart is that she’s the one who can’t spell.

I live in Ohio. We haven’t had a tornado in my particular area in eons, but my heart still leaps into my throat every time I hear those sirens. Last spring found me in the basement under a table, crouching over my dog, with a blanket above us, praying, please God, let it be a false alarm! It was, but I get nervous even thinking about it!

The problem is that my local news coverage makes everything beyond a brief rainshower sound like Armegeddon. You’d think when a thunderstorm comes that it’s the Storm of the Century. Way too many times have they interrupted broadcasts to give “Live Team Coverage” for something that’s no more severe than a little lightning and high winds. (They take calls from people in the area to report on what’s happening outside. I call this “Live Team Yard Watch”. )

“Uhh, yeah, uhm. The wind-- it’s blowing. Yeah. It’s blowing. Uhh, I think there’s a branch down in my driveway … . . no, wait, that’s just the rake. Never mind. Damn kids never put the rake away . . . Uhh, my lawnchair just blew over. . . .”

My local stations are the Break-Away channels. They seem to be in a competition to see which ones can be “Live, on the Scene” most often, and they will use almost any excuse for it. There’s an Olympic athlete competing who’s from this area. I’m sure when he comes home, there’ll be live interviews once he steps off the plane. I swar to God, once they broke away for live coverage of an abandoned house burning down. Mind you, it was in the middle of nothing-- no other buildings were at risk, no one was inside. It was just an ordinary, plain old fire. The kind that happens every day.

Luckily, I have two stations for each network, so all I have to do is switch over to continue watching my program, but, God, does it get annoying.