You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy™
Downtown Storm Front.
Once again, the weather people are calling for wicked weather.
The forecast days in advance is sinister, calling for disaster and mayhem.
But as the Zero hour approaches, the weather people are backing off their pessimistic predictions.
They are using more cautionary language.
It’s infuriating.
It’s like saying there’s going too be a plane crash and then on the day of the plane crash you say, well, it may just be a backed up toilet in the forward lavatory.
Which is it Metrological man?
Regardless, the day is here and it’s time to dance.
“You ready to do weather live shots?” my news director asks.
“Is there even going to be any weather?” a producer shouts.
“We’ll have weather,” the weather man says. “But the line is weakening, and the computer models say the storm may shift north of us.”
Planning for weather that never happens leaves producers with a big black hole in their rundown. Producers hate big black holes. So they quickly begin dreaming up other things we can chase till weather comes if it comes.
“We’ll just cover news until weather dictates that we don’t,” they say. “Then we’ll jump into weather mode.”
That’s easy when you sit down for a living.
But I’m a man of action. That philosophy entails a lot of wasted energy.
Essentially the producers want me to work on a story that will never air till we begin working on the story that will?
That’s like building a go cart till we decide to build the space shuttle?
What a waste of time. That’s bad planning.
The weather man is under the gun as the news director begins asking for specific minutes that the storm will hit and where.
The weather guys talk their weather babble and prediction this and that.
Ultimatly I get up from the table with the idea that a squall line will be fast and furious but perhaps not as damaging as first forecast.
That’s good right?
Sort of.
In a newsroom that has been storm predicting Armageddon for 3 days , a near miss is kind of a Wiff.
So we talk about other stories that will never air. There’s juvenile escapees and a fake grenade at a school. There’s guns in parks and..
I’m just not interested in any of it.
The producer keeps asking me “what are you going to do?”
I know what I’m going to do.
During a commercial break I go into the studio and ask the weatherman for an update.
“Is this coming?”
“Yes,” he says. “In the next hour.”
“Where?” I ask.
Nashville is the mother load. If it is coming to Nashville its a no brainer. I look at the big red dot on his weather map hoping he will say Nashville.
He shifts his finger from Nashville to the Northern counties.
“Up here is where you want to be. Hendersonville, Millersville, Sumner County.”
I look at him
“really?”
“really.”
Just then the floor director counts down from commercial.
“We’re back in 5, 4, 3,…”
I leave the studio.
“I’m going out,” I announce to nobody in particular.
“Where?,” the producer asks nervously staring at a run down full of ? marks.
“I’ll let you know.”
I get my rain coat and load into the news car. We begin to pull out of the driveway.
“where to?” the kid photog asks me.
If we are going to go where the weather man thinks the storms will be most severe, we need to make a right to get on the interstate
I stare at the street and then the sky. I think for a moment and go with my gut.
“Go left,” I say
Left is downtown Nashville.
“Didn’t he say the storm was…”
I put up my hand to shut him down.
“Go left. Trust me.”
He’s a kid and smiles. “I always trust you.”
He turns left.
My thoughts are simple.
Downtown is loaded with people.
Even if we get a taste of the squall line, it will be more visual and more dynamic than a direct hit in a field in some northern county.
I don’t know what cows think of the storm. I don’t care what cows think about the storm.
“Oh Elsie, I just couldn’t produce my usual allotment of milk. I was so nervous.”
So we head to the Bridgestone Arena and park downtown.
We gear up. We put on rain gear and camera covers. I wrap the microphone in a garbage bag
We even put a go pro camera on a nearby light pole and lock it down. We’ll capture the storm coming and condense it down to 30 seconds.
I look at the sky. It’s grey and juicy.
Like an atmospheric sponge it has been sucking up the heat of the day. The atmosphere is charged like a cattle prod with electrical angst.
I look at the street. It is loaded with unsuspecting storm victims.
Does nobody watch the news? Does nobody have a weather app?
If they did, nobody would be pushing babies with no shoes in strollers. If they did, nobody would be wearing tank tops and high heels and sun dresses with a bedazzled thong.
“What are you doing?” a couple from Kansas wearing cowboy hats asks me.
“Some big singer in town?” I look at the hayseed blankly.
“Storm coverage,” I say.
Their faces are blank.
They expect an answer like Tim McGraw is playing Tootsies.
They want to hear that Charlie Daniels is making a surprise appearance at Legends with a rendition of the devil went down to Georgia.
Instead they look at me blankly.
“Storms coming?”
That certainly wasn’t in the chamber of commerce brochure.
They walk away perplexed. Not sure whether to grab a beer or find a storm shelter to hunker down.
And this is why I come downtown.
It’s the same reason the sharks come to the beach to chew on humans.
It’s just freakin easy.
Everywhere you look there is a leg or a thigh or a foot.
It’s a weather smorgasbord and everything is free.
20 minutes pass and the sky is angry like an X wife waiting on a late alimony check.
A rain drop hits me on the bill of my hat. Then another. Then another.
plop. plop. plop.
“here we go,” I say.
My photog picks his camera off the sidewalk.
“get ready,” I say. “I give it 10 minutes.”
The key is knowing when to engage.
A squall line is usually a long ribbon of energy. It can run from the great lakes to the gulf of mexico, but sometimes it’s just 10 minutes wide.
It can push by at 60 mph. That’s strong enough to knock down trees, tear off rooves and create general mayhem.
It’s like a Ninja Motorcycle popping a wheelie down the interstate and blowing by at break neck speed. It’s dangerous and fun to watch, but in a moment, it’s gone.
Suddenly the tornado siren sounds from the arena across the street.
The noise is overwhelming like an avalanche of sound crushing my ear drums.
It is piercing, alarming, frightening.
It is so out of the ordinary, so blaring that you cannot help but be nervous.
But nervous of what?
The sky is thick like energized soup. There are flashes of lightning dancing in the clouds.
The wind is howling and the rain is coming sideways.
A tornado siren indicates a tornado is possible.
I look in the sky and I wonder “What if?”
People with little umbrellas bent backward are running for cover.
Women in sundresses and sandals are scurrying into bars and under awnings.
Men grab the cowboy hats off their heads and duck into honky tonks.
“Now,” I say to my photog over the resounding thunder of chaos swirling about us.
While everyone is ducking and dodging, I enter the fray.
I stand in the eye of the storm and let the rain blast me in the face.
It’s a life wake up a call that gets your attention.
This moment is a reminder that life is a frenetic pulse that can pass in the time it takes a thunder cloud to belch.
“5pm, like a gigantic alarm clock downtown, the siren atop the Bridgestone Arena sounds. It is followed by rain and blinding flashes of lightning…”
I just begin talking as I have done a thousand times before.
The words roll off my tongue. I feel that surge I feel that tells me that I’m on my game, that all cylinders are firing.
Some are news words, pedestrian and ordinary. But other words flow effusively, dancing from my lips like a ballet of verbosity.
Words like frenetic and undulate and cacophony roll off my tongue.
I am a weather rapper wearing a rain slicker armed with nothing but my wit and words and a desire to report on the edge.
While others run for cover, I move into the violent mix.
It’s exhilarating, unknown, unpredictable.
As predicted the storm front is fast and furious and lasts 10 minutes.
The siren will blare 2 more times.
I will talk to scared moms from Wisconsin. I will ask women in soaked sundresses what the hell they were thinking.
Through it all, I have a smile on my face.
In ten minutes, the furry is over.
I get back in the news car sopping wet
water is cascading off me onto the floor boards.
My photographer smiles. He puts out his fist.
I pump it.
No words are needed.
In news you just know when you have captured a moment.
And this was a moment.
Life’s Crazy™