Like many things the Government does, the intentions are good. I must have missed the reports in the paper, but I skip a lot of the articles. The County has begun calling county residents in times of dangerous weather. It is a broadcast call, similar to what the local schools use to notify us of delays and cancellations. The purpose is to augment the old sirens with modern technology.
Yesterday we got our first call. Around noon or so, the phone rang and an electronic voice told me the county was under a flood warning. "Hmm, huh"? says I to myself, "What was that all about?". I shrugged it off and thought no more about it.
Some wild weather came through the area last evening. Thunder, lightning, strong winds and heavy rain came with watches and warnings. The wife was aggravated the weather guys interrupted her favorite show, But there was no further phone calls from the system I did not know about and had only called me once before. In fact I forgot all about the phone call.
I went to bed around eleven-thirty. I slept well with the rain pelting the windows and thunder echoing from the rafters. I like a good spring storm. Then at 2:07 in the morning the phone rang. Those calls scare the shit out of me. I have two kids away from the nest and my parents are getting older. My best friend has continuing and worsening heart problems. The phone call was not welcome.
I answered with trepidation. Middle-of-the-night phone calls are never good news.
An electronic voice told me the county was under a flood warning. What the fuck? Not to downgrade the danger a rising river can mean to some folks, but I live a few miles from the nearest body of water capable of flooding. I get standing water in my side yard every time we get a heavy dew, but I am never in flood danger.
If a flood threatens my home I will have been pre-warned: the animals will have been vacating my neighborhood two-by-two in the preceding weeks. The news will have been reporting on the kook down in French Lick building the Very Big Boat.
Like I said, the intentions are good. A warned populace is a safer populace. But perhaps we should save our hysterical late night phone warnings for true impending disasters like tornadoes, and tsunamis. Modern news coverage and reporting already provides enough warning for blizzards, floods and hurricanes (unless you live in NOLA). I do not need a phone call to tell me a river three or four miles away is in flood stage.
3 comments:
Can sorta relate.
When we got our first weather radio a few years back we kept it in our bedroom.
It is EXTREMELY LOUD when it goes off, and it scares the crap outta you in the middle of the night.
Well one night there was an Amber Alert around 2:00 a.m. about a woman in Indy who couldn't find her children.
The next day it was reported that the woman had been arrested because she'd been so drunk the night before that she'd FORGOTTEN WHERE SHE LEFT HER CHILDREN!
At that point I gave T-man and ultimatum: Either the radio goes under the pillows, or out of the room.
It's no longer in our room.
That's good, Fred!
I used to get calls all hours to support maintenance in the plant.
I don't miss them, and the occasional drunk misdial does scare me, Joe.
Fred,
On our weather radio (a Midland WR-300) I have things like Amber Alerts turned off.
The only events it goes off for are actual, real live tornado and severe weather warnings (NOT watches) -- and then only if those warnings are for our county or the counties immediately west and north of us. (We're practically at the northwestern border of our county, so enabling alerts for the counties directly east and south of us would be useless.)
All I want is enough time to get to safety. I could care less about the other stuff.
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