[BC] Tornado Alley

[Rich Wood]

------ At 12:51 PM 11/19/2013, richardbrianjohnson at verizon.net wrote: -------

>The national news claimed there was a Springfield tornado and showed 
>some swirling leaves in West Springfield.

It was a bit more than swirling leaves. It came down not far from my 
Father's house in Westfield, tore out much of the tree population in 
the Shaker Farms area, seriously damaged my niece's school, moved on 
to West Springfield, then hopped a bridge in Springfield. From there 
it took out a few neighborhoods in Springfield. It went on to Monson 
and did serious damage there. Springfield is still rebuilding. Monson 
looks like a war zone because trees are harder to replace than 
buildings. Whenever a tornado touches down in a city that's where the 
coverage will focus because of the population density.

As you know, tornados aren't something we expect here. There was very 
little decent coverage in local media beyond WWLP-TV. Radio's 
coverage was abysmal. I think the only radio station within about 40 
miles that has a significant news department is WTIC, Hartford. The 
rest are rip and read. WTIC covered it from a distance. They did a 
terrific job with the October snow storm a couple of years ago that 
crippled much of the Northeast and left people without power for a 
week or more.

Since that tornado, WWLP has added tornado watches to their coverage. 
We've had an unusual number of tornados touch down in the Berkshires 
and Northern Connecticut.

I no longer rely on radio and TV, except WWLP, for real time coverage 
of anything. I bought a portable TV that was useless. I rely on my 
weather radio and 2 meter Ham radio. Both were very active with 
Skywarn. Hams all over the area were reporting on sightings and 
damage. Radio was either playing music or taking calls after the fact 
from people reporting on the damage that had been done.

I got a kick out of the trade press that fell all over each other to 
praise the awesome disaster coverage that didn't exist. It was also 
interesting to see the head dooods of radio appearing before Congress 
to push for FM radio in cell phones because of radio's awesome 
importance in public safety. Those are the same head dooods who 
dismantled news departments that used to cover disasters.

Rich