I'm furious. It doesn't happen often, so you might want to step back. I'm easy going about a lot of things. But this thing happens, each and every time, over and and over again. Each time, I think it will be different this time. Each time, it's the same thing.
Once again, last night, we had severe weather here. Once again, the supposedly "regional" news channel covered the weather only until it got past their city borders, then dropped coverage and returned to regular programming. Seven minutes later, our law enforcement officers spotted rotation in two separate locations in our area.
We continued to have severe weather for hours. The regional channel continued to ignore us, for hours.
It has happened before, often enough that it shouldn't suprise me. I keep hoping our "good neighbors" over at KAIT 8 will take that title seriously, but apparently they take it too seriously. If you aren't, quite literally, their neighbor, they just don't care.
Their new tag line these days is "Always Watching, Always Tracking, Always On." Well, maybe for some people. Not for those of us in Mississippi County. It was a Memphis channel that was telling me what was happening with the weather last night. Channel 8 thought a sitcom was more important.
The reason this upset me particularly last night is that some of our tornado sirens weren't operating. Our officers were literally having to go street by street, warning our citizens of the severe weather. Wouldn't it have been nice if some regional channel that was watching, tracking, and on would have helped our residents out by doing just that and letting us know about the severe weather in our area? Guess the sitcom and the dancing stars were more important that the continual rotation that kept developing.
I was upset enough that I called Ryan Vaughn last night. I identified myself as being with the Blytheville Courier News, because insanity reigns during bad weather. I wanted him to know that I wasn't the regular "I just saw aliens in the tornado" person that bad weather brings out.
I told him some of our sirens were down, that law enforcement officers had spotted rotation, and that I was upset they had dropped coverage even though Mississippi County was still under the gun. I added Memphis stations were telling us to take cover, while they were doing their regular programming.
His response? He wanted to know if we had damage. He told me he would not go on the air with the storms in Mississippi County unless I had damage to report. It's nice to know he's not concerned with the storms beforehand, only the damage after the fact. He told me they had been on the air for hours already, and if the Memphis station was telling us about the storms in our area, they were "just trying to scare us."
I swear to you I am not making this up. I know he was tired. I know he was busy. But this doesn't make sense. If it is so vitally important to get the news out in Jonesboro and the surrounding area, how can it be so unimportant when the bad weather gets over here? They get sufficiently warned, but we don't because warning us will just scare us?
Oh, I don't think so. I'm glad there were other news channels out there willing to look out for us, even though we are in a different state. I just wish the channel that claims us as being in their region thought that region extended to being included in severe weather coverage.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Not Always Watching, At Least For Us
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7 comments:
Since there has been no comments thus far, I wonder if anyone really reads this blog... However, here's a link to the other side of the story:
http://ryansmorningblog.blogspot.com/
It's been my opinion that KAIT provides excellent coverage to areas OUTSIDE of Jonesboro. Let's all remember the extensive coverage they gave to past events that DID NOT involve Craighead county... such as the Marmaduke tornardo (which they covered until it left the viewing area in Tennessee) and the Manila, AR tornado in 1998.
Again, this is MY opinion, just as the blog is HER opinion... Please read both sides and reflect on your experiences to form YOUR opinion.
Johnnie Gambill
Honey you need to take you a big dose of Ativan or Xanax and chill out!! The weather team at Kait 8 is wonderful. I think you have what psychologist call displaced anger. You are taking your frustrations out on the wrong person - you need to be dogging the people who are suppose to be keeping your tornado sirens up and running!!!
We, in Northeast Arkansas depend heavily on Kait 8 for up to date weather information.
I am so surprised that your newspaper allows a "journalist" who has such childish temper tantrums to work for them.
CHILL OUT!!! and always watch KAIT 8 for your latest weather information!!!!!!
I live in Bay and we had reports of funnel clouds but nothing touched the ground and no damage. Sounds like you didn't even have funnel clouds reported. There's a big difference in rotation and a tornado.
I'm surprised you're so upset over this. If you'd had reports of a tornado on the ground or even funnel clouds I could see your point here, but to be so upset over just rotation? I don't see it.
I'm more than satisfied with Ryan Vaughan's and KAIT's coverage of the weather on Tuesday night and anytime in the past.
Diane Jennings
This blog entry is an example of sensationalistic journalism at it's finest. I would hope that nothing even slightly reminiscent of this makes its way to a wider audience.
The implication that the KAIT Storm Team has its sights set only on the vicinity of Jonesboro "each and every time, over and over again" is not only grossly exaggerated, but is flat-out wrong.
For the record, Gassville, Mountain View, Sage, Zion, Ash Flat and Highland, Arkansas are well beyond the city limits of Jonesboro. COUNTLESS lives were saved that night because of the warnings and lead time provided by the KAIT Storm Team during their exemplary severe weather coverage on February 5th. In case anyone forgot about KAIT's coverage of that one, here's a link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UExLj2Q5yIU
But enough with the recent-history lesson.
As someone already mentioned, there is a big difference between "(someone) spotted rotation" and "National Weather Service-trained spotters reported a funnel cloud/damage/tornado." People do not realize how many telephone calls TV stations get from Joe Public reporting "rotation" "funnel clouds" and even "tornados." This happens even during the most non-severe conditions. During the coverage on March 18th, some viewers were sending in photographs of cloud features that they presumably believed were funnel clouds, but were not. It's good that people do that, though, because it allows trained meteorologists be the judge as to what's really happening at an area in question.
It's unfortunate but true that many people over-react during severe weather, because they're high-strung by nature and/or because they just don't know what they're looking at. It is a huge detriment to the rest of society when those over-reacting are in a position of influence, but ARE NOT National Weather Service-trained spotters. When certain members of society think that their reports should be taken more seriously "just because" it contributes to the huge problem of over-hyping severe weather, to the point where LEGITIMATE warnings are ignored by the people who need to hear them the most.
As for the assertion that "Always Tracking. Always Watching. Always On" is incorrect, I invite anyone who wants to to check out Ryan Vaughan's blog:
http://ryansmorningblog.blogspot.com/
One needs only to scroll down just a bit, or even click on "older posts" to see that both "Always Tracking" and "Always Watching" are absolutely true. People should appreciate KAIT's meteorologists a little more when they discover that they're awake in the early-morning hours -- literally losing sleep -- over severe thunderstorm warnings. "Always on?" How about KAIT 24-7 Weather? How about the watch and warning box and the "crawler" at the bottom of the screen. How about the fact that KAIT is ALWAYS live with severe weather coverage when they know that they need to be.
So lets sum this up.
1. Mississippi Co. was in no way "ignored" on March 18th. Not for "hours" or even minutes. Everyone who needed to be was sufficiently warned under the circumstances at the time.
2. Many more residents of Region-8 need to attend National Weather Service spotter training classes.
3. Non-functioning tornado sirens are a big problem, but not KAIT's problem.
4. There are actually people who were just as angry that local and National news, Wheel of Fortune and Charlie Brown was pre-empted by KAIT's severe weather coverage. Don't believe that? Ask someone at KAIT. I bet there were numerous angry phone calls and emails; there always are.
5. KAIT goes above and beyond EVERY time there is severe weather anywhere near the viewing area. No exceptions.
As a NWS-trained spotter, storm chaser and self-described weather addict who is highly attuned to world-wide severe weather events; as someone who counts several of the top storm chasers and meteorologists in the United States as my friends; and, as a person who has spent literally countless hours watching the live-streaming video coverage of other stations across the US during the most severe situations -- namely the Greensburg KS, Enterprise AL, or more recently, the Atlanta tornado events -- I can say without exaggeration, and without bias that I have yet to encounter better severe weather coverage than what KAIT provides. When applied to KAIT's Storm Team, thats an example of where the term sensational can be used in a good way.
I watched CH3 out of Memphis from about 4pm til 9 with the SAME weather personalities and then again at 1am STILL the same 2 men I believe. Repeatedly they apologized to the Memphis area people that their shows were not on, and were played later in the morning.
Tena I've read both sides. I live here and I side with you. And I don't live in an RV as a comment stated on Ryan's comments.
I live in Gosnell and I was not a happy camper that night either. Of course, we had no power so we couldn't have seen KAIT if we wanted to. Having lived in this area on 2 different occasions, nothing has changed. We are over looked in the storms, switch to a Memphis station and get over it. They get their information way before Jonesboro does anyway.
Oh, I don't think Blytheville/Gosnell has a weather watcher - our closest one is Manila. Maybe someone needs to go get trained.
Hi Tena, I agree with you that KAIT should have stayed with the storm on March 18th. Although Channel 8 comes in so fuzzy most of the time, I usually have to depend on other channels to get a clear signal for tracking storms. That night I started with channel 8 but soon switched to channel 3. But I heard from several people, family members and friends on both sides of Mississippi County that Channel 8 went back to their regular programming schedule soon after the threats left the Jonesboro area. So that prompted me to email Tim Ingram, the station's vice president and general manager and a few days later I talked with him on the phone. I won't go into details of the conversation but I will say that he mentioned that there is a fine line between causing possibly unnecessary public panic by continuing tracking storms and going back to normal programming. He said sometimes it's a tough decision that has to be made and of course that night the decision was made to return to normal broadcasting.
Mr. Ingram did assure me that KAIT is always looking to improve their station for their viewers and will strive to continue to improve. Apparently, according to your more recent blog post and a member of my family, KAIT 8 has improved on keeping region 8 viewers in Mississippi County up to date on severe weather.
As I said before, my TV doesn't receive Channel 8 very well anyway so I personally can't complain about them. So when I emailed Tim Ingram and talked with him over the phone I wasn't mad at KAIT, just a concerned citizen of Mississippi County.
By the way, I don't know much about the coverage by channel 8 for Miss. Co. during the 2/5 storms, but my wife and I heard a tornado just a 1/2 mile north of us while we were in our storm shelter. The next day I drove around looking for damage and a neighbor's tractor shed had it's roof blown off and thrown every which way.
Roger Riney
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