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East Coast Media Can’t Quite Convey Proper Context In Tornado Coverage

by Colby Hall | 3:41 pm, May 25th, 2011

» 12 comments

As a spate of tornadoes continues to pummel much of the Midwest, cable news outlets have begun to closely monitor the unfolding disasters of the past few days with alarming alacrity. Broadcast technology now allows live feeds to cover potential funnel clouds forming as though we were watching a car chase, and dayside cable shows are all too eager to cut in with the developing stories. But as is so often the case, East Coast-based media outlets fail to understand the larger context; the threat of tornadoes for those who live in the Midwest isn’t just a series of breaking stories, but more of a way of life.

First of all, nearly all news outlets have done a laudable job of connecting TV viewers with many heart-wrenching stories in Joplin, Oklahoma, and in Tuscaloosa last month. But with those stories so close in our rear view mirrors, news directors appear, now, to be engaged in their own form of storm chasing, which in turn, has revealed that key lack of understanding about how ubiquitous tornado warnings are this time of year. It also reveals some regional differences between the decision makers at NY based cable news networks, and the character of the proud Midwestern people who regularly endure these storms.

I was mostly raised in the heart of “tornado alley” in Hutchinson, Kansas, a smallish city of about 40,000 people that’s just a half-hour outside of Wichita. It just so happened that the alert siren – the actual yellow device pictured above – stood at the end of the block where we lived, so as a little boy, I was terrified by its portentous blare (not just during the time of a tornado warning, but also the first Tuesday of every month, when the sirens were tested).

Have you ever heard a tornado siren? Its like an air raid drill; but the flat Midwestern landscape (combined with a sparse population and lack of buildings) seem to only amplify the frightening and thundering blare. It seemed to me that tornado sirens were designed with one goal in mind: to cause panic. For me, it always worked, like a terrifying charm. So as a kid I got quite used to running down to basement with my family, and riding out the storm, after hearing the siren sound of tornado alerts that too-often marked the late spring and early summer tornado season.

My parents always remained calm, and I’m not sure in hindsight if they really weren’t bothered by the alarm, or just putting on an act as comfort to their nonplussed kids. I like to think the former, and as I got older, I saw that same sort of acceptance of the weather in everyone around me, including myself.

Quick side note: for those who have never lived in the Great Plains, it’s truly hard to convey the ominous nature of a bruised and angry sky that so often delivers these catastrophic tornadoes. A complete lack of hills and mountains means that the ground provides absolutely no break for a brewing storm, and so the “big sky” looks and feels like nothing you would expect to see nearly anywhere else in the country. I remember the first time I endured a much ballyhooed “nor’easter” in New York. I still laugh at how much attention a simple rainstorm can earn, particularly compared to the (potentially death-spawning) thunderstorms I’d regularly see in Kansas growing up (and the terrifyingly inconsistent, yet common, blaring of tornado sirens.)

Living in the Midwest, you eventually get used to this. And that’s the point. You hear it enough and understand that it serves a valuable purpose – it may save your life.

But the constant blaring also serves as an excellent reminder that at any given time, a tornado could sweep through your neighborhood and render it rubble within scant seconds. The knowledge of living on that existential edge develops a character that, frankly, is what makes Midwestern people so unique. Yes, those in the Midwest often hold traditional values dear, and I am not speaking strictly about politics, but about old school characteristics like valuing education, hard work, and saving money. Talk to most people from the Great Plains, and they will tell you that these have long been hallmarks of Midwestern character. They form a foundation that can’t be ripped away by a capricious funnel cloud.

Which flies in stark relief compared to the anxious and alarming tone that we are now seeing in live shots of impending storms. Yes, the past few days and weeks have seen awful devastation, the likes of which I haven’t personally witnessed ever before. But the current tone of impending doom reveals that the New York based anchors don’t understand that the threat of tornadoes is simply a way of life.

In many ways, it’s the classic news media pitfall: overreacting to a recent news event with out of proportion coverage of what may come (and very rarely does). In some cases an alarming tone is an appropriate one, and after dozens of deaths, there’s an argument to be made that this is one such case. Like that siren, though, once the blaring coverage winds down to a low hum, then silence, life will go on in Tornado Alley, and so will that uneasy peace with its temperamental climate.

Colby Hall, Joplin, Tornado, Tuscaloosa

Moderate

I must be outside to hear our siren so I bought a weather radio. On the first night, the alarm went off at 3AM to tell me there had been a gasoline spill on a street that I had never heard of. No more of that, I will take my chances.
Rio

Colby, when I was a kid we did not have the tornado siren, our fire dept. would sound their alarm, they also rang it daily at noon and again at 9pm….curfew for anyone under 13.

The coverage is a bit over the top, it was ok the first day but now, thinking about the survivors still trying to find missing family members and others picking through the rubble to salvage something, anything, I wish the press would just get the heck out of there and let them be. They are in the way.
Neb0s

Agreed. Sadly, this is just the tip of a very big and very old (too old IMHO) iceberg of what the East Coast media gets wrong or doesn’t seem to grasp about life in the middle of the nation. I love your comment about the sky. The tornadic storms that make the sky turn unnatural colors and the giant fronts that move across the horizon and seem to fill everything as far as you can see. My wife and I are storm spotters for the NWS here in Nebraska. The storm fronts coming over the Platte river bluffs west of Omaha are just amazing. Going further west into the parts of the state that are flatter (like the Platte valley) gives you these enormous sunsets where the sun sets all around you and the sky just burns with color.

Storms are a part of life. We all have basements, we all have weather radios and emergency gear because being prepared isn’t just a motto, and conservatism isn’t about politics, it’s a lifestyle. Easterners just don’t understand.

Its not just weather that they don’t get, its conservatism as a means to a happier life in the Midwest that never occurs to Easterners. We vote conservative not because we are, but because it works better. We tend to be socially conservative (say in taste in TV shows) because we live in the Central time zone. Living in the CDT area, and to some extent, the Mountain time zone means violent TV starts while our kids are still awake, unlike the East, where kids go to bed at 8, and the mutilated Naval officer of the week doesn’t have it’s close-up on NCIS till 8:10 pm. Our kids go to bed at 8, after we have played remote control cop for an hour (every day). If the Easterners had to put up with this, we would have a lot fewer dead body shows on TV, and conservatism as a lifestyle would be more familiar with them.
bruuno

I live in Tuscaloosa and have for about ten years. My place was very fortunately fine but right across the street (and most of my neighborhood) is completely gone. I also grew up in New York City. So in other words I know both perspectives. However I simply do not understand what the point of your article is other than to claim some sort of regional superiority. Sure Tornadoes are the story du jour but with pretty good reason, certainly more than the ‘sumer of the shark’ or some other nonsense. And other than MSNBC interupting their broadcast yesterday to show live coverage of Oklahoma (and with pretty good reason if you ask me because they got some pretty gripping and compelling coverage) I simply don’t see what you are talking about when you say that ‘New York based anchors’ are overreacting.
timzank

I grew up mostly in the midwest too Colby and been through a number of them, the most memorable (or famous one I guess) was when I was 7 years old in Minneapolis in 1965. I remember vividly looking out the front door and seeing what I thought looked like a huge carrot coming down from the sky, at which time my older brother yanked my awestruck ass from the doorway and dragged me downstairs to a walkout basement where we crawled beneath my dad’s desk and watched boats, fences, trees and all kinds of other “stuff” flying by for what seemed like an eternity.

My brother knew the drill, (and we all learned as well) when he saw the funnel forming he opened all the windows and got us to the southeast corner under the desk. A tornado makes winds do such strange things, we had a fold up lawn chair (the aluminum kind that don’t even weigh a half a pound) on the patio that never moved an inch while a huge willow tree 3 feet away wound up 3 houses down and our pontoon 50 feet away wound up twisted like a pretzel.

There’s no way to describe the power and unpredictability of a tornado.
http://MsUnderestimated.com MsUnderestimated

Great piece, Colby. I now know why I like you. I’m an Okie girl myself, currently transplanted in Atlanta, but hoping to move home soon. For those of you who don’t understand it, Colby is exactly right – it’s the same reason why Connie Chung got booted from the OKC Bombing coverage for asking “what are you doing to stop the looting?” To which the Sheriff said “Ma’am, we’re Okies… we don’t loot.” She looked like a fool and was quickly dispatched by her network.

I never knew how much I truly loved big-sky country until I moved here to Atlanta, and all of a sudden all I can see are trees. WHERE’S MY SKY? Something beautiful about driving down a rural road and seeing the ribbon of green pastures spread out before you where you can see to the horizon.

Colby, you are good people. And I truly appreciated this piece of yours. My heart and prayers are with all those affected by these storms, but as Colby knows, too, I know they’ll all be okay in the end, and it will be because they took care of each other. I can remember the dislike of the smell of onions in our tornado cellar, but I knew it was a “safe” smell.

I miss home.
Barack Must Go

I’ll trade you our 911 for a whole season of your tornados….Paleeease.
http://constitutionallibertarian.co.cc DavidKramer

Well one thing is for sure, all the Soros trolls will be safe.

They do all live in their mother’s basement by the way. LOL
http://constitutionallibertarian.co.cc DavidKramer

BMG,

Barack Must Go said:
I’ll trade you our 911 for a whole season of your tornados….Paleeease.

I have been through 3 different storms that scared the bejesus out of me. I would trade a once in a country’s history attack for the storms of the flyover country in a HEARTBEAT.

Every year we in flyover country deal with floods, tornadoes and thunderstorms that make your terrorist attack on one instance to be infinitesimal.

No, do not go there on stating I do not feel for the victims, but you have to be kidding me on attempting to equate natural disasters that happen EVERY year with that.

Anyway, I am sure if the US Federal government wanted to provide 100,000 TSA agents to watch the skys, they would be about as helpful.
http://constitutionallibertarian.co.cc DavidKramer

I just wanted to add BMG, I am not attempting to make light of 9/11.

BUT, every year we deal with this. EVERY year.

How many times has the coasts dealt with this kind of thing? The three times I mentioned were not just normal thunderstorms. They were life and death situations.

Flyover country is sick and tired of those that attempt to minimize our problems. I wonder what the folks that spend their lives feeding this country and others, are going to do to after their lands and lives have been devastated after the government felt it necessary to flood their lands? This was done to save the cities and those that are too stupid to realize that flooding is inevitable along a flood plain.

People and government are idiots to continue this program. We need food, we do not need cities in these areas. These city locations were located there 100 years ago in a different time. Farms are important, city locations not so much.

This of course is IMO, only.
Sidhekitten

Barack Must Go said:
I’ll trade you our 911 for a whole season of your tornados….Paleeease.

You do understand that Joplin essentially ceased to exist, 3/4ths of a 40,000 person town disapeared in less time than it take you to go to the john. There are parts of Alabama and other deep south states that will take years to rebuild. You have just proved this stories point, East Coaster’s have no clue what it is like.

Except for earthquakes, you can get out of the way of virtually any other weather event. With a tornado, you have seconds to react, and in those seconds God decides whether you live or die. Have you ever seen the finger of God, I have and I bet almost everyone who has posted their stories here have or know someone who has seen one of these magnificent and terrible things when they strike. And before you or other east or west coasters ask the asinine question of why don’t you move, let me answer. If they move, you don’t eat, you know bread basket of the country.

I now live in Nashville, and I was here for the Tornados that went right into downtown, and I was here last year when the flood took out much of our city center and devestated areas that were no where near the flood plains. You could almost here cricket’s chirp when it came to the national media. A year later we still have people who are not back in their homes. In fact, El Presidente’s FEMA is trying to disallow some loans and get their money back yesterday. But we were not news because we are in the south and instead of looting we went to work as soon as the rains stopped. Like my former home in Illinois, (no not Chicago) midwesterners and southerners deal with serious and deadly weather every year and we do it without the MSM’s attention. Joplin, Tuscaloosa, Huntsville, and countless towns that barely make it onto the map will rebuild and they will do it without New York or Los Angeles rolling in with a news crew.

Take some time and look up the amount of property damage and loss of life caused by our weather patterns on an annual basis. We would never discount 9/11, because it was tragic and horrible beyond belief. But do not discount the pain of the parent who watched their child get sucked out of the sunroof, or of the people whose family members were impaled by shrapnel coming in at a 190 mph. I have watched your posts over the months and I think you just posted before you thought.
tiredoftherunaround

Barack Must Go said:
I’ll trade you our 911 for a whole season of your tornados….Paleeease.

9/11 happened once.
Tornadoes are a yearly occurence.
Get the picture?