You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy.™
Severe Weather Coverage.
DATELINE: NASHVILLE
It’s 4:30 Friday afternoon.
I’m pacing back and forth outside the Bridgestone Arena on the corner of 5th and Broadway.
The wind is warm and constant, like jet exhaust funneling through the nearby sky scrapers.
There is an uneasiness in the air.
For 24 hours, anyone with a meteorogical degree or a smart phone with doppler radar has been predicting something bad is coming.
The air is moist like warm soup. The sky is a blue grey, swirling, in an unpredictable pattern, like God twisting a rubics cube.
The sky is so low, it seems to be hanging over the rooftops like some puffy serpent poised to strike.
The scene outside the arena is surreal. Police are wearing lime green vests working traffic control. Their faces are serious. They have just been told that the storm front is 30 minutes away.
“What about the cars?” one cop asks a supervisor.
“Forget the cars,” he says ernestly. “If they get flipped over, we’ll deal with that later..”
His voice trails off. He has no logical way to finish that sentence. The thought of what might happen is too overwhelming.
Meanwhile, from across the street, the honkey tonks are either unaware of the pending storm, or the propietors just don’t care. The door to Legends Corner is open and music is filtering into the street.
I watch as tourists pose with the gigantic guitar on the corner. One woman is wearing a sun dress and cowboy boots. The wind is raging and she has to hold her hair back with one hand and keep her dress from flying over her head with the other. Through it all, she manages a big smile for her scrap book.
Every 60 seconds another cross walk fills with unconcerned fans crossing the street. They are heading into the SEC Women’s basketball tournament being played in the arena.
Waves of fans wearing UT orange cross the street. Their shirts say “We Support Pat” in reference to legendary coach Pat Summit.
They are laughing and unconcerned, like it is a basketball version of Mardi Gras.
Do they not know that a storm front from Illinois to Mississippi is raking across the United States of America at the speed of a bullet train with a bad attitude.
I ask some of the fans if they are worried about the pending vortex cloud chewing across the country and barreling down on Middle Tennessee with the anger of a scorned Ex Wife.
“Nope. Here to watch the game,” one woman says. “I’m sure the arena has a plan in case of emergencies.”
BLIND FAITH.
Not a worry. Not a concern. Just an insouciant smile and off to the arena to join 15,000 other fans.
Meanwhile in my IFB (earpiece) I hear our weather caster frantically describing the destruction in Dickson just to the West of Nashville.
Houses damaged, 2 tornadoes spotted on the ground. None of it sounds good to me.
I look at the sky again. It seems lower, hanging over me, consuming the downtown area. It seems to have fluffy fingers that are ready to grab a roof and rip it off.
Suddenly a blaring siren sounds. It is ear piercing and uncomfortable. At first I think it is feedback from my earpiece.
I look around to get my bearings. The siren, like an obnoxious train whistle is every where, filling the cavernous court yard outside the arena.
This is the first of an onslaught of tornado sirens that will sound over the next 90 minutes.
“We’re coming to you live now Cordan,” the director screams in my ear.
I got nothing planned. In extended coverage, you hurry up and wait and fill 30 seconds of time while the main weather casters take a breath or a gulp of water from their marathon storm tracking.
I’ve covered a hundred storms, and going zero to sixty in a moment is not difficult.
“GO!” the voice in my ear demands.
My camera man pulls back from his shot of the skyline and spins around to me.
I look like a wet rat. The clouds have opened up, the rain is blasting us sideways, and the tornado siren is screaching like metal spoons left in the microwave.
I see flashes of lightning in the distance. The flags are flapping furiously, people are dashing for cover. I sense the urgency.
Fans rush into the arena. I see umbrellas turn inside out.
I look in the camera and tell the viewing audience that the lightning is putting us in jeopardy and we will have to power down for a few moments.
“Get to safety, get safe!” The voice in my ear screams.
We move from the corner and take up a position close to the arena wall. I would not call this safe. Safe is inside a building. We have opted to stay outside. It’s the paradox of being a newsman. You sometimes forget safe in favor of getting the story.
All in all, I am not uncomfortable with our position. The Bridgestone Arena is shaped like a flying saucer, so the roof extends over the building by 30 to 50 feet. It is just enough of an over hang to give us a barrier from the elements.
Our camera is still on, its picture being broadcast back to the live truck, which is relaying that signal to the station. The director has the option to take this live shot whenever he wants to supplement what the weather casters may be talking about.
Suddenly all hell breaks loose!
The sirens shrill a final blast of insanity. The sky turns blackish blue and the Bat Building, 3 blocks away, the tallest building in Middle Tennessee, a landmark you can see from miles away, vanishes.
It is replaced by a river of water in the air, flying sideways, angrily, blasting against the ground and buildings.
We are getting soaked, but we are ok, so far.
Then the lightning bolts flash in the distance and the hail falls out of the greenish grey cloud hanging over us. It’s as if a dump truck has backed up and released its load.
SPLATT. SPLATT. RATT A TATT SPLATT.
Thousands of pea sized pellets began smashing the concrete and the buildings.
People scatter for shelter.
I can’t hear a thing, the wind is so loud. I have no director in my ear, no way of knowing if we are on live or not.
I don’t care. This is the moment before me.
I begin narrating what I am seeing, what I am feeling.
I wouldn’t say I am calm, but I am not frenzied either.
The hail is smashing down on Broadway. Fifth Avenue begins to fill with water.
The Ryman Auditorium is almost imperceptible and it is across the street.
“The hail is blasting the Palm Restaurant,” I scream over the frenzied confusion.
“Traffic has come to a stand still in downtown Nashville. Red Lights. Green Lights. None of it matters,” I shout into the microphone.
The hail grows in intensity, to marble sized and if possible, the sky gets darker, greener, like filthy algae inside a fish tank that has never been cleaned.
The meteorlogical assault lasts for about 90 seconds, then it is gone.
At 80 miles an hour, this angry storm front has moved on to terrorize another frightened community.
I look at my live truck operator and camera man as the sky begins to return to normalcy.
I start laughing.
“That was freaking awesome,” I exclaim, not knowing if we are still live or if we were ever live.
We high five each other knowing that we just did what few people stupidly do on purpose; we weathered a possible tornado, outside, staring into its furious soul, trying to capture it, to force it to reveal a little bit of itself.
I am an electrified nerve, amped on adrenaline. I should be scared, but, all I can think is how freaking fun that just was.
Friends begin texting me asking if I am ok.
I tell them I was just in the storm, asking if they saw any of it on tv.
nobody responds affirmatively.
Damn It!
I will later say to the live truck operator. “I think I just broadcast the fury of a storm to you 2 guys. I bet they never even took any of that live.”
None of us know. In the middle of hell raining down from the skies, we are confused, tethered to a live truck cable, pushed up against a retaining wall at the arena. We are 3 blind mice just hanging on for dear life.
I know how good the live shot felt, if it in deed was live at all. I am suddenly disappointed that we were not able to share this moment with the people at home.
“Do you think they took it?” I ask the camera man.
He shrugs. “I was rolling on it.”
Yes he was. But my mic is plugged into the truck sending a signal back to the station, and his camera is recording sound independently. If that is the case, the sound of rain, wind and hail, is all you will hear, beating on his camera like a tom tom drum. The pictures will be good, but the narration will be lost.
I am disappointed. It’s my job to experience life and bring it to people who can’t experience it.
I just lived through something intense, immeasurable, and I had the chance to share it with viewers, and I don’t think I did that.
People begin coming out of the arena. “Hey you guys ok?”
I suddenly remember that there is 15,000 fans inside.
The game is delayed for 20 minutes while the storm passes by.
Some people say they watch through the windows as we got pummeled.
“You guys are crazy,” one orange wearing fan will say later.
I call editing and ask if they were rolling on that moment.
“You mean the emmy you guys are going to win,” the guy laughs. “Yeah we heard it.”
My heart bubbles over.
I don’t know if they ever took it live, but it was recorded back at the station which means I have access to it and can share it with the viewers in a story that will eventually air at 10pm.
After listening to the broadcast, I think I was calm, considering we are hunkered down, 3 of us, almost on top of each other, as damn near 80 mile an hour winds blow into our faces, unleashing pellets of stinging hail and blistering rain.
I talk non stop about everything and nothing all at once. I have not a fact at my disposal, but I have a million sights, sounds, flavors and impressions that I try and cram into 90 seconds.
All in all, it is an energized bit of TV. I watch it like a viewer and know that this is good.
As I put the piece together, it edits itself. My description and the pictures are poignant. I talk about not being able to see the Bat Building and there is a shot of a massive edifice disguised as a funnel cloud. I talk about getting blasted by hail and there is the imagery.
The piece last 1:52 seconds and all of it is sound on tape, meaning I didn’t write a script or record a voice track. What airs is what happened spontaneously, at the time, while the energy in the air was thick and dangerous and overwhelming.
My camera man pokes his head into the edit bay before leaving.
“They should team us up on weather more often,” he says with a grin. “We get good stuff.”
He is referring to the terrible, deadly Gallatin tornados a few years ago when we also worked a terrible storm. That’s a day my contacts with law enforcement allowed us to drive a live van through a myriad of police check points to what was essentially ground zero.
We arrived at a scene that looked like a bombing raid in Beirut. Buildings destroyed, cars upside down in the street. It was surreal.
We went live from this hell for hours before our competitors even got close. From a broadcast point of view, we owned it.
As I leave the newsroom on this night, I am tired, spent. The adrenaline is gone and the non stop frenzy of unpredictable insanity is now calm.
My clothes are soaked and feel heavy. My hair is wet and I am hungry.
I don’t know the extent of the death toll, or the damage. Those numbers will filter in as daylight illuminates the next day.
All I know is this is what we do. We go to the heart of the lion, we stand beside it as close as we can without getting hurt, and we share that moment with others.
On this night, I know that I accomplished that goal, perhaps getting closer than I should have, but glad I was there.
Time to sleep.
And that is crazy.