Stormy Weather

After being bombarded with horrific footage of the tornadoes in Joplin,Mo and many other states over the past week, a tornado warning on TV right here did a little more than make me nervous.
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The other day I flipped back and forth between TV stations seeing which breathless weather person/meteorologist or Chief Meteorologist could dissect the big red blob
with its hooks and swirly things more accurately. I thought of folks who live north of me and watched as the blob swept over their part of the surface map and wondered what the heck was going on. Because despite the mania and the kerfluffle, and the pontificating and sputtering going on, absolutely no one was reporting what was actually happening. Just what COULD happen.Therein lies the problem.
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Fortunately no catastrophe to report. It got me to thinking though, how back in 1985 a terrible, devastating tornado occurred within 10 miles of me and, being a college student in a tiny apartment, I had no phone, no TV, and had no way of knowing anything had even occurred until the next day.
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Now, there are countless ways to keep on top of things. Alerts sent to your cell phone, websites to watch the radar yourself and see the storm's path, radio and TV of course, too. But despite all that...as I dashed between Intellicast and three TV stations, I still felt at a loss to the actual conditions.

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Years ago, I worked in radio and I remember having to sound the alarm...the EBS system it was called back then. Now it's the EAS system. I'd play those loud blaring tones and read that all too familiar speech..."the National Weather Service has issued a Tornado Watch
for the following counties..."and then you would read them and you would also say...
"remember. . . a Tornado Watch means conditions are favorable for a tornado to develop. A warning would mean that a tornado was been spotted..."
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And I'd be reading all that and thinking I sure hope I don't have to go down into the moldy World War II bomb shelter in the basement...that place creeps me out.
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The point of all this....if there is one, is the immediacy of radio was what put us
in front of the coverage. People would call in and say they have quarter inch hail
where they are. Or they would call and report really high winds...or that their power was out. I could get a real sense of what was going on, and where, and could immediately tell people things.
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As I write this there is a bad thunderstorm here, so I must go. Perhaps I'll put on the radio...