Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Easy Umbrage?
I often accuse other New Orleanians in general and bloggers in particular of having become too thin-skinned, but even I'm a little miffed at how little national attention today's tornadoes received in the national news. CBS and NBC both began their national broadcasts with stories about bad weather, but nothing about New Orleans. Finally, in the last ten minutes of NBCs broadcast, Brian Williams mentioned the tornadoes. He actually used the phrase, "adding insult to injury." Well, Brian Williams has continued to pay attention to New Orleans, so we shouldn't blame him for the fact that news writers like to use hackneyed phrases, no matter how inappropriate they might be. But I didn't see any mention of today's tornadoes on either CNN's or MSNBC's websites. You could find a report if you typed in a search, but I suspect that most people in the country have no idea. Good thing the tornadoes didn't hit the Mississippi Gulf Coast, they'd be whining about how nobody pays attention to them, for the ten thousandth time.
Well, I don't want to make an issue of it, just make note of it as a counter to the Mississippi complaint about too little attention. One local weatherman (Bob Breck) seemed to think the city was hit by one or two F1 tornadoes and one F2 tornado. I wasn't paying close enough attention to hear what he based that on, nobody else has been that specific. I suppose it didn't sound like a major weather event to people who don't realize how vulnerable to further damage the city is.
WWL has some good slide shows of the damage. Only one with a separate link. Ashley Morris has some pictures of damage in the Carrollton area at his site, and Adrastos has more links.
Update: I paid attention to what Carl Arredondo said on WWL. Apparently an enhanced EF2 tornado hit Westwego, crossed the river and weakened to an EF1 when it caused damage damage in Carrollton. It was an EF2 that went through Gentilly, but there's uncertainty about whether it was the same, or a different, tornado. That means that the majority of the pictures on the Internet would be of the area that was hit by the weakest tornado.
Well, I don't want to make an issue of it, just make note of it as a counter to the Mississippi complaint about too little attention. One local weatherman (Bob Breck) seemed to think the city was hit by one or two F1 tornadoes and one F2 tornado. I wasn't paying close enough attention to hear what he based that on, nobody else has been that specific. I suppose it didn't sound like a major weather event to people who don't realize how vulnerable to further damage the city is.
WWL has some good slide shows of the damage. Only one with a separate link. Ashley Morris has some pictures of damage in the Carrollton area at his site, and Adrastos has more links.
Update: I paid attention to what Carl Arredondo said on WWL. Apparently an enhanced EF2 tornado hit Westwego, crossed the river and weakened to an EF1 when it caused damage damage in Carrollton. It was an EF2 that went through Gentilly, but there's uncertainty about whether it was the same, or a different, tornado. That means that the majority of the pictures on the Internet would be of the area that was hit by the weakest tornado.
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If it weren't for my parents in Ohio who watch the Weather Channel like it's going out of style, I wouldn't have been awakened by Mom to be asked if the tornadoes had affected me. You're absolutely right that the mainstream NEWS had nothing to say, but the Weather Channel was on it and had been for many hours prior. I just didn't think a tornado would come to pass ... in Orleans Parish. Whoa.
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