Not in L.A. We just don't know how to do severe weather.
I was watching when the warnings were broadcast, and while I was listening to the fire department reporting tornado damage to commercial buildings in Costa Mesa the local news folks were interviewing homeowners in Tujunga who had 3" of mud in their backyards. They just couldn't seem to break from their format even for something as significant as a Los Angeles tornado.
Last night wasn't much better. The 10pm news started on KTLA with reports on storm damage and a brief look ahead when the "Breaking News" banner came up and with it a helicopter shot of a police pursuit in the Santa Clarita area. There went the news broadcast. For the next 52 minutes the only news on that channel was a helicopter shot of some nimrod driving his car 45 mph down the I-5 with various detours along the way. The entire newscast was eaten up with this nonsense.
Adding stupidity to nonsense was the work of the anchors. Somebody needs to either teach these people how to broadcast a chase or teach them to shut-up. At one point the female anchor asked a Sheriff's Department representative "do we know how much gas he has?" You could tell the guy was having a hard time answering without laughing in her face.
From reports I saw this morning the chase continued all the way down to Buena Park where the guy finally stopped and gave up...which is what happens in about 90% of these chases. There was absolutely no reason to follow this for an hour while skipping every other important story of the day. They could have easily put the chase on their website and let people interested in such things watch it over there while going on with the news. Certainly the weather situation in Los Angeles was a much more important story than an idiot running from the cops.
Posts
1 comment:
Move out here to the middle where tornadoes and snow storms and thunderstorms and high-speed winds are the way things happen.
T-storm makes the street wet? Four hours of !FLASH!FLOODS!. (This old California boy grew up in or near the canyons. You can't do "flash floods" in the flatlands! A flash flood is a wall of water coming down Chevy Chase and stuff like that.
Somebody gets word a snow-flake sighting in Fremont (that old boy got around!)? Six hours of RADAR tracking the blizzard.
Bad T-storm with a tornado watch? DOPPLER!RADAR!OMG!WE!ARE!GOING!TO!DIE. (You can hear the screetching with the sound turned off.)
Son-in-law moved here from Santa Clarita called on night frightend by the T-Storm-and-Tornado panic.
Told him, first thing to do is turn the TV set.
Second thing to do is look where you are--a house that has been there a hundred years.
Third thing to do is make some coffee in case the power goes off and put it in a Thermos. If the siren on the high-school across the street goes off, go to your basement and sit under a main beam. Drink the coffee.
Post a Comment