A Little Rant

Living in North Texas we tend to have more ice than snow. We get one, maybe two ice storms each winter, but when there is a shred of a threat of bad weather the news media goes nuts! They talk about it for at least a week before the storm shows up - the weather people get all giddy and cannot contain their excitement (this guy and this guy are the WORST).

The night before the big storm, the first 15 to 20 minutes of the news will be reports talking about how the big cities have their sand trucks ready and waiting to help with the morning commute. They warn us (like we have not been listening all week when they warned us the first 20 times) that the bridges and overpasses will be treacherous (they love that word) during the morning commute so drive slowly.

Then they do the worst thing of all - get the kids (and parents) hopes up that school will be canceled. As a kid I would get so excited that there would be a snow day that I could hardly sleep - only to be disappointed the next morning that I had to go to school.

But watch out if the weather people are actually right (which they usually aren’t) and we do get ice - it will become the story of the year! The TV stations send out these poor reporters to stand out in the icy freezing weather to report the same thing over and over "be careful it is slick and stay home if you can". This always makes me think “why are they out in this weather?”. Most ice storm mornings, the anchor people will be on for their regular shows (5-7) but because we need to keep seeing the poor reporters in the cold or a picture of Bob Smith's icy trees in his front yard (they ask viewers to email pictures in) they will pre-empt Good Morning America and the Today Show!! Last year they were on the air from 5 AM until 1 PM recounting the same thing OVER and OVER. Boy did they get a lot of emails for not showing All My Children in its regular time slot! :o)

Yesterday brought back memories of my childhood. The news people have been building up this story since last Friday and our County was the one that was supposed to be hit the hardest. Our 7 yr. old got in the car after school and said "We are not going to have school tomorrow". I asked him why he thought that because I knew his teacher would not have told the class that. He said at recess all his friends said they saw it on the news that we were having a big ice storm, so there would be no way they would have school tomorrow. I tried to gently tell him not to get his hopes up, but he had a hard time going to sleep last night and prayed there would be no school tomorrow.

Well tomorrow is now today. So did we wake up with roads covered in ice? Was it another false alarm with sad little kids everywhere?

Well, let’s just say our 7 yr. old is in school and had absolutely no trouble fighting through the “treacherous” roads as there was absolutely no ice anywhere around us. And so now we patiently wait for the next overblown, overhyped, week long discussion of the next big ice storm.