Severe Weather Takeover

I got my first solid taste of severe weather coverage (as in tornado WARNINGs during the newscast) last Friday. I've dealt with breaking news before--and certainly severe weather before--but I actually had not played a leading role in the newsroom for tornado warnings at the time of a newscast in the past.

I was watching the competition a few minutes after five o'clock (5:04 to be exact) when they cut back to the weather center. The National weather Service had just issued tornado warnings for 2 of the counties in our viewing area. I immediately headed for the control room where my producing student was boothing our newscast, assuming she knew nothing of these up to the minute new warnings. I knew what I wanted right away. I wanted to cut to our meteorologist ASAP to begin nonstop coverage of these two warnings. We would ditch the remaining 25 minutes of the newscast and continue with nonstop severe weather coverage until the tornado warnings expired. This is per our station's policy and I whole heartily agree with it. There is no better way we can serve the public at a time of potentially deadly severe weather in the area than through nonstop coverage and information on these warnings and what people can expect and should do.

Now, knowing what I wanted and making it reality became two different things. In retrospect (which only took a matter of about 10-15 minutes afterwards) I could see clearly how I could have better gone about making this happen and happen smoothly. First of all, as it turned out, our meteorologist and her weather producer were not even aware of the warnings until 5:07. I knew 3 minutes earlier. I should have been on the phone to them first to make sure they were aware of the warnings as well, inform them of what I wanted, and determine how soon we could make that happen. Second, I should have informed my producer student (who became mildly freaked when I told her there were tornado warnings and we needed to go to all weather ASAP) of the warnings and the information I just got from the weather department. Third, we should have told the director and anchors. Fourth, keep my frustration commentary to myself. Business first.

As it happened, simply put, THAT did NOT happen. I wasn't useless, but I could have done a much better job. Frankly, I was not myself. The way I reacted Friday at that moment was not how I have handled breaking news and split second producing decisions in the past. We began nonstop severe weather coverage at roughly 5:15, two commercial breaks and one regular, yet extended weather forecast later. We wrapped it up when the warnings expired at 5:45. I, however, was far from the control booth at that point... where I belonged on that day, or at that time that day in any case.

I was not perfectly calm. Therefore I did not think a plan through clearly (which I always do). And when the weather team wasn't ready to go wall to wall with these warnings quickly, I was verbally frustrated. After regaining my composure later outside of the booth and thinking things over, I apologized to the participants for messing up. I did learn a lot though. My producing student did a great job working with our director to further our severe weather coverage and help out our inexperienced meteorologist (who was doing severe weather coverage on-air for the first time ever as well... and talking intelligently for 30 minutes straight isn't exactly realistic we all know). In any case, the first obvious helpful thing they did was cut back to the anchors on-set to talk about what to do in case of a tornado, for non other than to give Michelle a one minute breather. They also put up a full screen graphic with those tips. The other thing they did was get one of our other, more experienced meteorologists on the phone for a live report as he was driving through a thunderstorm to get to the television station to help out. That gave Michelle a solid five minutes to take a breath, regain her composure, and look over some maps and information before going back on air and doing so live on the fly again. My only complaint on the phoner with Eric was to cut away from the phoner full screen graphic and show a picture of the doppler radar again. As a viewer at home, I know more than anything I want to see that radar and what the storm is doing.

Later that night after things were all calm again, I talked things over with Michelle and the weather producer to figure out what happened on their end and how to make sure things go smooth next time. I had never given consideration that, Michelle needed to review the data they were receiving from NWS before she could start talking about it on-air. Also, as I said, she had never reported tornado warnings on-air before and it was all new to her weather producer. Frankly, our personnel in the weather department was highly inexperienced for the circumstances at hand; they learned on the fly. Surprisingly enough, our director also had never done severe weather coverage before and was unaware of our station's policy to go wall to wall until the tornado warnings expire. Since then, Michelle built a severe weather show template for the next time we have tornado warnings (which will probably happen within the next few weeks) to help herself and the others back in the weather department. Doing the same on the news side would be a great idea. At least now I've thought it all the way through, see what did happen, see what should have happened, and know what I want to do next time.

All and all though, our team did a stellar job in the end and I'm proud of them. In terms of competition, we rocked it. While one of the competing stations relayed the warnings before we did, they went away from the coverage quickly and didn't spend a great amount of time on them at all. The other took a long time to get someone on air and once they did, also did not stick with it until the end of the warnings. I'm proud of our team at KOMU. Great job guys and another lesson learned.