The Opinionator

Storm Coverage

Storm Coverage

Sometimes I wonder how much milk the television networks can get out of covering the weather. One recent Saturday morning is a good example.  Your choices around here on Saturday mornings are usually mind numbing cartoons or local news.  If local news is sparse they can always talk about the weather. Endless charts and swirling color graphics of storms roiling around the Caribbean. On this particular Saturday the news was Hanna and Ike. On and on and just for good measure they threw in Josephine who was doing her tiny thing off the coast of Africa.  Sometimes they divert to a show of storm fashion.  You get to see reporters standing in the rain and wind trying to shout into a microphone while sometimes seriously at risk from flying debris. As they shout at the camera we get to study their yellow or fluorescent pink slickers.  Headgear is fun to watch.  Baseball caps, often with an unknown university logo, get blown off heads.  Kerchiefs slap against the faces of pretty young women.  You wonder, "Is some boss making them stand there in the storm?"  I often think about that during the endless shots of traffic crawling behind a reporter on snow covered Route 128 in February.  Why do they want outside shots all the time?  Does that make you more in touch with what's going on?

You know the channel five reporter Gail Huff?  I think she is the road person for the news.  One morning she'll be up in Haverhill, N.H. talking about a guy who tried to shoot his wife.  The next day she's down on the Cape hanging almost sideways from a sign as a Nor'easter performs for the camera.  She seems to be everywhere that is remote.  I hope they pay her well, she earns it.

Years ago I was in charge of calling off school in my town if the weather made the trip to school unsafe.  Doing that job, you soon learn that it's more of a political decision rather than a safety one. I used to roll out of bed early and go out and drive around. I never learned much from doing that, but it was nice to be able to say later in the day that I was up and out at an ungodly early hour. Most of the time I took my cues from the guys who plowed the town parking lots. If they could clear early, we were on go. One important goal is to avoid being the only one who decides in one way while everyone else decides in the other direction.

I even had the mayor on the radio one morning cursing me because of a cancellation call.  Virtually everyone second guesses the decision and half of them think it was the wrong one.  I used to tell people that I did not call off school, my dog did.  I took her to the door after she woke up in the morning.  If she would not go out, school was cancelled. My kids' friends use to call us in the early morning on snowy days.  "What's your dad going to do?"  My son always had a good answer. "How do I know, Dad's in Florida at a conference."