Tuesday night was an annoying one in Durango World.
A little before 7, last night, I popped myself some popcorn, in preparation for eventually watching American Idol, watching something else that had been recorded, til the DVR had recorded enough of American Idol so I could fast forward through the many boring parts.
At a little before 7 the predicted damaging thunderstorm had not arrived in my zone. But, at a little before 7 the power went out.
No TV.
So, I sat outside, eating popcorn, enjoying the breeze and listening to very distant thunder. About a half hour later the storm arrived. Bursts of hail were very noisy. I got a call from Miss Puerto Rico telling me she was in her office safe zone with her cat, because she'd heard tornado sirens. I'd not heard them.
Sometime near the end of American Idol the power came back on. I've no idea what time that was.
I tried to watch the Dancing with the Stars results show. But, it was not possible to watch because it is on ABC. Which locally means, when there is a weather event, this weather obsessed annoyance named Pete Delkus ruins whatever TV show you are trying to watch. Even if it is one of the top-rated shows on TV.
Yes, I know, the weather in these parts can be deadly.
But.
What use was Pete Delkus to me, weather information-wise, when the power went out?
I have said it more than once, if you are at home watching TV you are likely aware of storm potential. If a storm gets bad you have many options for information. You don't need Pete Delkus being a Drama Queen because the Doppler Radar spotted a rotating cell somewhere.
I gave up thinking I was going to be able to watch Dancing with the Stars, no longer able to take the overly earnest Pete Delkus I turned off the TV, voluntarily cutting myself off from any TV generated dire weather warnings.
When I read the news, online, this morning, I was expecting to read about some bad local weather damage. It was not all that bad. A lot of people lost power. Some windshields were knocked out by hail. There was a report or two of tornado sightings. The Rangers had to stop playing baseball.
That's about it.
The headline in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, this morning, indicated last night's was a very major weather event, with the headline saying, "Biggest storm system in years hits Dallas-Fort Worth."
Biggest storm in years. That sounds pretty big.
Then in the second or third paragraph, in the biggest storm in years story, I read the following...
"This is one of the biggest storm systems to hit the area since 2007," said Mark Fox, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Fort Worth.
So, the headline should have been "Biggest storm system since 2007 hits Dallas-Fort Worth."
That sounds way less dire.
ABC really needs to have a talk with its D/FW affiliate about how weather events are covered. And maybe consider getting Pete Delkus into some sort of therapy.
4 comments:
Now, now, Your Crabbiness ... it *was* a big system with a lot of potential for Bad Things (not unlike the storms in 1995 that killed my car with softball-sized hail) ... especially coming on the tail of the Joplin disaster. (I was up way too late Sunday night monitoring that situation.) If you had found your ass in, say, Balch Springs this morning, you might be singing a different tune. Maybe in a higher pitch.
I haven't watched any TV in real time since the digital doofus switch. One would think I would have decent reception of a few channels here just a couple miles from beautiful downtown Fort Worth without shelling out for cable or a bigass antenna, but one would be wrong. So I listened to the non-stop weather blathering on the radio, watched a weatherperson or two break up into stuttering pixels on TV, and surfed radars on my laptop. (I also confess to being a weather geek.) At one point, I grabbed the cats and laptop and headed for the interior hallway.
I realize that you watch tv as "bidness" but since I haven't had an investment in American Idol since Bo Bice, no harm no foul for me. Anything I watch is after the fact on Hulu or network websites anyway.
It *is* irritating to lose power as much as you have. My location has been lucky this spring in that most of the storms thus far have split and gone north or south of me. I'll tolerate my inconvenience to avoid the other guy's tragedy.
Not pickin' on you, you've had enough of that in the last couple of days. After all, I do count on you to be Durango the Contrarian. :)
CatsPaw, I forgot to add that adding to my TV crabbiness was when power finally came back on, with the TV back on, in addition to the constant TV weather man weather warnings, my AT & T U-Verse thing kept, over and over and over again, making honking noises with a tornado/thunderstorm alert warning flashing. You could click to dismiss and then a couple seconds later it'd be back.
The power going out all the time is getting real old.
In Joplin they had so little warning, TV info was of no use, near as I can tell. Just like it was of no use to me when my power went out. However, my battery powered radio still worked. As did my ears hearing tornado sirens.
I'd be curious to learn how many people in Balch Springs got themselves to safety due to weather warnings on TV? Or if they even had power enabling them to watch TV.
I think the TV warnings may do more harm than good.
I remember during the killer tornado of 2000, a kid working at a CiCis in Lake Worth heard the dire TV warning and asked if he could go move his new pickup to a sheltered spot. He was killed by a big chunk of hail on his way to save his pickup. I don't know if it was listening to Pete Delkus that led to his doom, or not.
I personally don't find the wall-to-wall weather stuff to be as irritating as excessive hype about ridiculous inconsequential crap during May sweeps, "Trump's Most Amazing Hairdon't Yet!" for example. And THAT stuff goes on and on for WEEKS. While there's always a chance of people becoming complacent and ignoring warnings because of a perception that a histrionic Pete is crying wolf, I'd rather hear his howling and live to bitch about it later.
The technology now allows conditions to be seen and predicted that once might be divined by your local sage or your creaky bones. I want to know about that rotation or giant hail ... especially in the dark when I can't see it ... by radio, TV or Pony Express. Give me just a chance at winning the bad weather lottery.
The outcome is *alway*s a toss-up. Heads, you get clonked by a giant hailstone running to your car. Tails, your behind gets crushed under the fallen roof of the pizza joint. Or nothing bad happens in your location and you live to see another day. Whoever knows? Just like all of life, no guarantees, life ain't fair, yada yada ...
(I don't know if anything really happened in Balch Springs last night ... I was picturing you having flown a number of miles in your Lazy Boy, deposited and arranged in one of those improbable Ripley's tableaux along with your intact TV and unspilled popcorn.)
I have a rather active imagination.
CatsPaw, that was funny, sucked up in a twister, in my Lazy Boy, landing with my TV and popcorn intact.
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