Mota Boy
08-29-2005, 10:09 PM
You've gotta wonder how the heads of the Weather Channel feel about hurricanes. Weather is pretty constant, pretty fucking boring. Sure, you need to tune in every once in a while, but nobody plants their ass down and watches the weather. Well, not normally anyway. Sometimes there are hurricanes.
Hurricanes (along with blizzards and floods) are one of the few types of severe weather that both captures the public's imagination and is made for television. Tornadoes don't last long enough to get people to tune in, severe cold/heat sure as hell feel bad, but who fucking cares about minute-by-minute updates on those, and as for severe dryness... a celebrity's fart arouses more public interest. Hurricanes are the weather phenomenon made for reporting - they take days to build before they make landfall, they're unpredictable, forcing millions to keep updated on projected paths, they cause massive destruction over a large swath of area and make for some great visuals (such as Anderson Cooper, out on a pier during the hurricane, chastizing other people out on the pier for being out on the pier during a hurricane).
At the very least, weather channel execs have gotta have some conflicted feelings over hurricanes. I like to imagine an intern rushing down the hall and breathlessly announcing "It's hit Cat 5!!" to a somber boardroom of men in navy suits that suddenly erupt into a high-fiving, champagne-popping jig before sneaking off to schedule time in confessional.
Hurricanes (along with blizzards and floods) are one of the few types of severe weather that both captures the public's imagination and is made for television. Tornadoes don't last long enough to get people to tune in, severe cold/heat sure as hell feel bad, but who fucking cares about minute-by-minute updates on those, and as for severe dryness... a celebrity's fart arouses more public interest. Hurricanes are the weather phenomenon made for reporting - they take days to build before they make landfall, they're unpredictable, forcing millions to keep updated on projected paths, they cause massive destruction over a large swath of area and make for some great visuals (such as Anderson Cooper, out on a pier during the hurricane, chastizing other people out on the pier for being out on the pier during a hurricane).
At the very least, weather channel execs have gotta have some conflicted feelings over hurricanes. I like to imagine an intern rushing down the hall and breathlessly announcing "It's hit Cat 5!!" to a somber boardroom of men in navy suits that suddenly erupt into a high-fiving, champagne-popping jig before sneaking off to schedule time in confessional.