Weather Leads

.

As I've posted before, weather is the king when it comes to news. Oh sure, it may not be as exciting as an LA car chase, or as sexy as an early morning drug roundup, but everyone is interested in the weather. With hurricane season in full swing already this year it's a sure thing that we'll be hearing and seeing every cheap trick in the book when it comes to covering the storms. Alberto is already making an impact on the Florida Gulf Coast spawning a couple of tornadoes.

We had our own share of nasty weather Sunday. And it couldn't have come at a worse time for our station. If you know anything about the south you know NASCAR rules. And if you know NASCAR you know that the piedmont area of North Carolina NASCAR is KING. So when a tornado warning went up for a county in our viewing area and we broke into the race with the information, Jerry Lewis would've been proud of the answering skills of a few weekend crew members trying to settle the fans.

I noticed the storm getting closer to our house while the girls played on a slip-n-slide in the backyard. So just like any good news geek would do, I sent the girls inside and I went for my sticks and camera. I set up in the garage as it faces west, into the storm. A quick check of the radar showed me some hail would probably accompany this storm. And after shooting about 15 minutes worth of lightning and some rain with wind, I bagged the shots I was looking for. At first the hail was pretty light, only a couple of hailstones here and there. .Then it happened. The tell tell sounds of ping, ping, ping on the cars told me it was here. I popped off shot after shot of the penny sized stuff coming down until I found just the right angle, shooting across the front yard of the next door neighbor's house, the hail looked like popcorn coming out of the green grass.



After getting the video I needed it was time to get it back to the station in time for the end of the race. It would light up the airwaves all evening and into the morning.

As I made my way in to the bureau Monday morning I knew we'd be hunting storm damage for our story. The voice on the other end of the conference call confirmed it, "go find storm damage, we're getting e-mail pics from folks in Yadkin County, find them."

Easier said than done. People love to send the pics but for some reason don't like telling you where or who they are. First stop, a gas station in Yadkinville. After talking with some locals we were directed to Swan Creek Road along the Wilkes County line. No problem, it was still before noon and our story wasn't slated to run until six. But, after a 45 minute drive down every back road along the western side of Yadkin County we'd come up dry. Brent and I were both getting hungry and figured since we were on that side of the county we'd stop in to an Amish place where we found the best sandwiches in the world. Unfortunately, the Shiloh Country Store is closed on Mondays. Strike two. But, since Brent hadn't been exposed to many Amish communities he asked if we could go down the road a little just to see the buggies, etc.

.It was along St. Paul Church Road when we saw the only damage in all of Yadkin County. Tree after tree in this one front yard all split and laying on the ground. After a short hunt and talking with some Amish youngsters next door-who, of course wouldn't go on camera-and we had found the owner of said front yard. She also showed us a barn that lost it's roof, luckily the horses were out in the field when it happened.

.We also went down the road a little ways and shot some nice shots of another barn destroyed by the strong winds. He had sheet metal scattered over an area the size of a couple of football fields. The roofing stopped only when it hit some woods a couple hundred yards away.
.
As I write this entry, FOX News' Greta Van Susteren is along the Gulf Coast delivering a live show and spouting off all the cliche's known to reporters far and wide. It looks as though this season could rival last year's hurricane gauntlet as Alberto will be the earliest hurricane to strike the U.S. coast in 40 years. I guess I should start making my hurricane "must haves" pretty soon as a trip to the Carolina coast looks imminent. Funny what makes us news geeks get pumped up ain't it?