Weather Stories

As I have mentioned, I spent a great deal of time watching The Weather Channel http://www.weather.com/ this past week.  I would not say that The Weather Channel is my new best friend, but maybe I resumed relationship:  When there are serious weather events, I spend a lot of time watching The Weather Channel.  I check in with The Weather Channel almost every morning, and frequently get my news flashes from The Weather Channel. 

I do not think that their weather reporting is better than any other service. But they do continuous coverage during a serious weather event,  and sometimes, that is what I want. (When CNN  http://www.cnn.com/first started, they did continuous coverage of the news, and I liked that, too. They still do some for breaking news coverage, but not like they did.)  I do not watch much of the other programming on The Weather Channel.  Most of it does not appeal to me. 

I was impressed, during the coverage of Isaac, about a comment one of the broadcasters made:  Paraphrasing, the gist of his comment was New Orleans is low lying country, the storm was going to produce a lot of wind and rain, and no matter what precautions and preparations were made, there WOULD be flooding. Well, duh! Finally someone on The Weather Channel was honest and real.  A lot better reporting than sometimes in the past:

I do not recall anyone reporting, before it happened, that they foresaw the danger of the levee breech in Katrina in 2005 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Katrina. There were plenty of people, after the fact, who talked about having forecast or predicted such a disaster. Maybe they did, maybe they did not. No matter. It happened. I have the sense people let their guard down, since the storm had passed, and this added to the problems.

In my opinion, in 2008, The Weather Channel downplayed the seriousness of Ike http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Ike, which was "just" a category 2 hurricane.  But forces converged and Ike literally destroyed parts of Galveston. Storm surge, tides, wind and rains again compiled a devastating force. 

In 2011, Hurricane Irene http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Irene was followed as it churned up the Atlantic Coast.  The coverage was good.  However, at one point, it highlighted on battening down and preparing New York City.  When the impact on New York City was nominal (no flooded subway system, Manhattan was not flooded) it was if the broadcasters took a collective sigh of relief and disappointment (no major catastrophe to report).  It seemed to me that they then under-reported the impact as Irene continued on into New England and Canada, until the horrific impact became known, and provided headlines again.

I understand that The Weather Channel is not just providing a service reporting the weather. They are looking for headlines to increase their viewership in a very competitive media market. So the disasters are the stories they want to report.  The reporters seem to really get excited about being able to report weather stories that include danger and disaster.  The reporters seem to express concern for the survivors and victims of these storms, but they also seem to be pumped about reporting the serious conditions, and indeed are looking for that to report.

Reporting possible weather disasters has to take a fine edge:  Certainly people need to be warned. However, if watches and warnings are frivolous or continually inaccurate and problem situations do not materialize, people will stop taking the warnings seriously, and eventually ignore them.  Calling for evacuations is a drastic step to take; yet, ignoring these evacuations orders repeatedly proves that people end up in harm's way, and emergency responders then put themselves in harm's way to rescue those who ignored evacuations orders.  Evacuations are costly to individuals and communities, and some people may feel they do not have the resources. And, many people feel it just can not happen to them, be it a tornado, earthquake, flood, hurricane or snowstorm. 

In my mind, the most responsible tact to take is a factual reporting of the weather conditions, and reminding people that they can not prevent weather. Their preparations should be to protect and take care of themselves, what ever that involves. And, no matter how good weather predictors try to be, they are not perfect, and unexpected weather conditions can occur with no warning.  Weather just happens.