It’s raining heavily in the St. Louis area. “Severe Thunderstorm” they’re calling it, with a “chance” of producing tornadoes. On January 17th. At two in the morning.
Okay look…the “chance” of tornadoes developing is just plain, flat-out fear mongering for ratings on the part of the news channels. Channel Four in my area is being particularly transparent. Weather guy actually just said, “The storm has weakened, and the National Weather Service has allowed the warning to expire, but I still feel like this is a storm that I need to continue to watch and track for you.” Sad.
As many remember, St. Louis had (I think) five tornadoes tear through here on Good Friday of last year. Remarkably, no one died or was very seriously injured as a result. Other areas were not near as lucky. Just prior to that, many lives were lost in Alabama and Georgia in big storms. Then slightly after the St. Louis tornadoes, the devastation in Joplin took place. And now the news stations are playing on the fears of the masses every time it drizzles. Bugs me. A lot. This kind of thing is actually why we DON’T take bad weather very seriously around here. A tornado warning is just a graphic on the screen to most of us, because we know that 999 out of 1000 times, they’re just making too big a deal out of nothing for screen-time.
…and since the thunder is keeping me awake (because I’m sleeping with my window open, since it’s 70-degrees in JANUARY—and we may talk about how much I hate that in a different post later), I thought I’d rant about it for a little bit.
And I’m done now. Please resume enjoying the Internet.
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Worship Song List from Pursuit on 1/15/12:
- Blessed Assurance
- Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing
- Softly and Tenderly
- Be Thou My Vision
- Victory in Jesus
T-shirt worn: Reverend Horton Heat
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