5.25.2011

Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts



  • Yeah, I know that was crazy weather last night, but I suspect in the 1970s and 1980s it might have warranted a couple of television break-ins, but it wouldn't have been wall to wall coverage.
  • Have you ever heard of so many "hooks" and "potential"/"possible" tornadoes in your life? Weather coverage is now based upon the presentation of fear instead of information.
  • Number of deaths and injuries from last nights storms: Zero. (Edit: OK, maybe one.) You realize your ride home was more dangerous than the weather last night, right?
  • Not sure why Fox 4 decided to put a reporter off of 287 in Decatur yesterday evening.
  • But that wasn't as silly as having anchorwoman Heather Hays stand on the sidewalk in front of their studios in downtown Dallas for two hours. ("Let's go to Heather to see what she can tell us about the current conditions out there.")
  • I saw a ton of folks just standing in their yards and looking at the sky. I was one of them. My neighbor pointed out to me that he was from Illinois so he was used to tornadoes. Hey, hoss, don't try and scoreboard me - I grew up in Tornado Alley.
  • A story on Fox 4 last night seemed like an ad for a storm shelter company in Decatur.
  • There were some great storm shelters in my neighborhood as a kid, but I think they were built more for protection from the Soviet Union than from Mother Nature.
  • The rain delay at the Ranger game was bizarre. At one point, what looked like a few thousand fans (maybe more) huddled in the outdoor concourse during a rain delay were routed down and through the Rangers dugout as bad weather approached. (Screenshot of them getting in. Pic of some of them crammed into the underground walkways.). When that created a human traffic jam in the stands, and with fans being pounded by weather, officials changed gears and told everyone to go back. 
  • The long and snake like tornado over Argyle was pretty cool looking. Scary and dangerous, but cool. (Pic below on front page.)  Edit: Video of it here is fantastic.
  • But we had a real emergency at my house: The season finale of Glee was interrupted.
  • The most shocking news last night was that Channel 8 made the decision to run the finale of Dancing With The Stars instead of going with weather coverage. As The Ticket said this morning, "You know there had to be a tornado form in the Channel 8 newsroom and his name was Pete Delkus."
  • WBAP's Hal Jay confusion-of-the-day occurred early this morning when he butchered Rangers' manager Ron Washington's famous quote of "That's the way baseball go" by saying Washington had said "Baseball do what baseball do."
  • Joplin tornado damage: Before and After.