You know you're a Midwesterner when. . . .

You know, after long years in the Great White Nawth, you finally have become a Midwesterner when you're horrified by a TV station's lack of alarm at a tornado warning.

You've got to understand. I live in Omaha, Neb., on the northern end of "Tornado Alley." A large slice through the heart of my city was leveled by an EF-4 monster in 1975.

Several smaller twisters have taken chunks out of Omaha neighborhoods this spring, and the whole place got knocked silly by a late-June thunderstorm that acted like a short-lived Category 2 hurricane.

NEBRASKANS -- Omahans -- don't mess with tornadoes, just like New Orleanians no longer mess around with hurricanes in Katrina's wake. And at Omaha television and radio stations, it's all hands on deck and wall cloud-to-wall cloud coverage every time the sirens go off.

Reporters are chasing the storm and calling in with blow by blow reports. Meteorologists are plotting storm paths and arrival times on their Doppler radar displays.

Viewers are E-mailing in digital pictures of snaking funnel clouds.

And storm-wary Omaha folk are heading for "safe shelter" in our basements.

WHERE I'M ORIGINALLY FROM, though, this concept unfortunately doesn't exist. If Baton Rouge's creaky old air-raid sirens sounded for a tornado warning, locals would think it was either the Russkies or the Luftwaffe about to blow them up good.

I think this might be why so many Southerners end up getting themselves killed when tornadoes fall upon them from a black, stormy sky.

That is because, in the opinion of we Midwestern twister veterans, lukewarm Southerners are quite insane.

This was my first thought, when the National Weather Service issued a tornado warning as I was watching Hurricane Gustav coverage on WAFB in Baton Rouge. Frankly, Channel 9 didn't seem that excited that potential death was threatening to snake out of Gustav's outer bands.

The station didn't find it necessary to break away from news reports about Gustav's impending arrival. Or from commercials, for that matter.

When the Channel 9 weatherman did come on screen, he casually mentioned rotation in a storm over Livingston Parish and headed fast for the capital city. It might be a good idea to take shelter in an interior room or hallway.

I thought I might be watching Al Sleet. "Heyyyyyyyyyyy! Que pasaaaaaaaaaaaaa!"

NO. NOT QUE PASA. I am from Omaha.

We. Know. Tornadoes.

The proper response, Baton Rouge, is "AAAIIIIEEEE!!! SEEK SAFE SHELTER NOW!!! Joe Schmoe in the field is right behind this supercell -- Joe, what are you seeing now?"

Three Omaha TV stations and several radio stations were caught asleep at the switch at 2 a.m. on a Saturday morning when a couple of twisters touched down in suburban Omaha. There was hell to pay. Particularly for the station caught airing a rerun of The Wild, Wild West.

And the one TV station with a meteorologist at the switch . . . the one station sounding the alarm before the storms touched down -- and before the storm sirens could go off -- now is The Station of Tornado Heroes.

Channel 9's "Heyyyyyy! Que pasaaaaaa!" act wouldn't fly in Omaha, by God, Nebraska. Omaha, by God, Nebraska, is not an Al Sleet kind of media market.

What hurricanes are to Baton Rouge and New Orleans, tornadoes are to Omaha and the Midwest. And while lots of Omahans might not know a storm surge from a storm cellar, they'd know what to do when one of them twisters dropped out of a feeder band.

Uh huh, yes we would.

Scum of the earth

What kind of scumbuckets will picket the funerals of Boy Scouts killed in a tornado?

The Rev. Fred Phelps' band of lunatics from Kansas will. From the Sioux City (Iowa) Journal:

Westboro Baptist Church, a Topeka church with the Web site www.GodHatesFags.com, released a stament minutes ago indicating members plan to picket the funerals of the four Boy Scouts killed by Wednesday night’s tornado.

Calling tornadoes “the favorite weapon of His wrath,” the group listed the first of the four funerals as taking place Tuesday in Omaha. However, a funeral for Aaron Eilerts of Eagle Grove, Iowa, is reportedly taking place Monday in West Point, Neb., about 40 miles southwest of Sioux City.

Westboro was in Denison, Iowa, in 2005 to picket the funeral of Sgt. Casey Byers of Schleswig. Byers was killed on June 11, 2005, in Iraq.

IF TORNADOES indeed are the favorite weapons of God's wrath, I can't wait for the EF-2000 monster that's going to take out Phelps' "church." And only Phelps' "church" in Topeka.

I wonder what the hateful bastards would have to say about that?

It takes a special kind of person

From the comments, some brave soul crawls out from beneath his (or her) rock to reveal what a skid mark he be on the knickers of humanity:

Anonymous said...
My, The Holy Lord Most Almighty God must REALLY be pissed at y'all to keep sending His Wrathful Tornadoes at you the way He is!

What'd y'all do - vote to allow Gay Marriages or something?

BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA HAAAAAA!

(and if you think I'm being crude in the face of tragedy - need I remind you that Y'ALL are the same exact way every time we have an earthquake in California? Guess you hypocrites don't ever REMEMBER doing that, though, DO YOU?)

11:07 AM

YOU KNOW, there are loonies behind both front lines in the Kulturkampf, but it takes a special brand of jackal to actually revel in a region's misfortune and in the death of four of its children.

And, as we learned this morning, three of those dead children were from Omaha.

So, "Anonymous," here's to you. Now, go to hell.

Then again, I suppose someone such as yourself already occupies a hell of his own making.

Horror on the Plains

There were about 100 Boy Scouts at the tornado-struck camp 50 miles north of here in Iowa. No basements.

Television reports say the entire camp was leveled. Around 40 of the 100 injured; four confirmed dead. KETV cited officials who said many of the injured have head wounds.

The scouts were on a weeklong campout. And now the whole camp is gone. Gone.

HERE'S AN EARLY REPORT from the Omaha World-Herald:

The storms that struck Omaha Sunday caused damage only to homes, trees and property. Wednesday night’s storms that sprung up from Lincoln to western Iowa took lives.

One tornado, according to Harrison County dispatchers has four fatalities and up to 30 to 40 injured.

According to an Omaha city official, at least one of the groups of scouts at the camp was from Omaha

Mercy Medical Center in Sioux City will be getting two young juvenile males by medical helicopter right around 8 p.m. from the tornado that touched down at the Little Sioux Scout Ranch.

Parents are to call 431-9272 for information on injuries.

Shortly after 9 p.m., parents who had gathered at the Fellowship Hall in Little Sioux had yet to learn who had been killed and who had been injured.

A state trooper told parents he would deliver a list of names as soon as possible, but the scene at the Boy Scout camp was chaotic. He asked for their patience.

More than 100 people were gathered at the hall, a one-story brick building, and many more were streaming in.

There were numerous reports of damage and tornadoes touching down in Lincoln but nothing confirmed yet as of 7:45 p.m. said Kerry Eagan, chief administrative officer for Lancaster County.

Mike Krysl, a spokesman, for Mercy Medical Center in Sioux City, said the hospital in full-scale disaster alert. Krysl said he did not know the extent of the two juvenile's injuries.

We're getting hammered . . . fatalities

A tornado has destroyed several buildings at a Boy Scout camp in southwestern Iowa, killing four and injuring 30 to 40 others, according to a report on KETV, Channel 7 in Omaha, which cited information from the Harrison County emergency dispatch center.

The scout camp -- the Little Sioux Scout Ranch, just northeast of Little Sioux, Iowa -- was filled with Boy Scouts for a summer event.

This comes as a virtual freight train of tornadic thunderstorm continues to rake eastern Nebraska and western Iowa. Tornado sirens have been going off in Omaha throughout the evening, as one tornado warning is replaced by another before it can expire.

This is the worst night of weather amid a couple of solid weeks of horrific weather. All of Douglas County (Omaha) -- as well as numerous other area counties -- also are under flash-flood warnings, with creeks rising fast and reports of street flooding incoming.

The lights are starting to blink. Gotta run if I want this to post.

UPDATE: Boy Scouts, according to Channel 7, have confirmed four deaths. Damn, it's hailing and I hear a roar.

UPDATE 2: OK, the hail has pretty much stopped here in west-central Omaha and the wind seems to have calmed down a bit for the time being. But we're getting torrential rain, and there's reports of creek flooding all through the west side of town.

Millard, which got whacked by a tornado early Sunday morning, is flooding in spots. Likewise, Papillion Creek, which runs through west and central Omaha, is flooding -- causing at least one car to flood out at 90th and Center streets.

Whither broadcasting? I'm with Ron

Whoever is in charge of moderating website comments for WOWT -- Omaha's Weahehhehhehther Authority -- never, EVER ought to be hired for any job involving screening inmates' mail.

Ever.

SOME CHANNEL SIX VIEWERS, writing in the comments of the Omaha City Weekly Media Watch blog, complained the station's webmasters were censoring any negative comment concerning WOWT's bungled coverage of early Sunday's EF-2 tornado.

One reader noted his criticism of the station and chief meteorologist Jim Flowers, though measured and respectful, never made it into the website's comments section.

Apparently, WOWT staffers were too busy assigning blame to everyone but themselves for the station's inability to do what competitor KETV did -- provide live coverage as the storm bore down on the city -- to deal with negative comments.

THAT'S WHY a combox warrior has to be wily in these cases.

Likewise, it helps to get an assist from station personnel too harried or too dense to crack a really simplified version of a jailhouse code. In fact, the code "Ron from Omaha" used to breach the station's Pleasantville Firewall was so simple it required no key to decipher it -- just a sharp eye.

And sharp eyes must be something in extremely short supply at Channel Sux. Here are the messages (you read the words typed in all CAPS . . . that's how simple the code is):

Posted by: Ron Location: Omaha on Jun 9, 2008 at 02:34 PM
CHANNEL 6 is to be commended for not being EMBARRASED to tell it like it is about how ITSELF AND others had no lead time to know about the bad weather. Many people FAILED to see the tornado in OMAHA. IT IS PATHETIC, people, THAT JIM FLOWERS of everyone in Omaha is STILL the only one on the air who HAS the guts to tell us how people came so close to dying in their beds because of the freakish nature of this storm. Telling the truth is HIS JOB, and I'm glad Jim does it so well.

Posted by: Ron Location: Omaha on Jun 9, 2008 at 04:36 PM
Robyn says it all. WOWT could not know that bad weather was coming when the weather bureau FAILED to tell the station's meteorologists -- who weren't there anyway -- that there might be severe weather in OMAHA. I don't think it's right that WOWT should be BLAMED by some OTHER PEOPLE who didn't have weather radios, FOR its all THEIR OWN FAULTS. WHAT A BUNCH OF LOSERS! i'm going to FIRE back at these naysayers with the truth, which JIM FLOWERS so bravely told people to-day. WOWT, you're my favorite station. And all the whiners should HANG IT UP. don't SURRENDER YOUR moral high ground to these nattering nabobs of negativism. don't give them such LICENSE!

FISH. BARREL. FIREARMS.

And when swirling clouds of death and destruction bear down on our homes and loved ones, we count on these jokers to warn us that danger is nigh.

Among the impressive clot of refrigerator magnets on our old Kenmore (Really, I think standing near our refrigerator might relieve the pain and stiffness of arthritis.) is an old one from Channel 3 -- another station that was half an hour late and a sawbuck short early Sunday.

The magnet, back from when Action 3 News was KM3 News, listed "3 Things Every Kid Should Know" -- what county we live in, what's a tornado watch, and what's a tornado warning.

Maybe all the Omaha broadcasters -- save Channel 7 -- could pool their depleted budgets and go in on an updated version of that KM3 relic. It could add a fourth item, after the explanation of "tornado warning." Maybe something along these lines:

If you're counting on us to tell you a tornado's coming, follow these simple instructions. 1) Put your head between your legs. 2) Kiss your ass goodbye.

Anybody know where I can buy a $40 black-and-white, battery-run digital TV?

Exactly 24 hours ago, I was in our basement at the computer when all hell broke loose outside.

I've always been a night owl, and at about 20 after 2 Sunday morning, I was thinking of turning in after finishing up with some E-mail.

THE MISSUS, who had been dozing in the Big Blue Chair, was getting ready for bed herself. It just so happened that the living-room TV was on Channel 7, and that Channel 7 happened to have meteorologist Chuck McWilliams on duty as a line of storms bore down on the Omaha metro.

And it just so happened that my wife noticed that McWilliams had broken into programming to warn that a storm he'd been eyeing on its trek across eastern Nebraska was about to hit far southwestern Omaha with unexpected violence.

It had suddenly gone tornadic. The National Weather Service issued a severe thunderstorm warning at 2:22 a.m. The tornado warning followed at 2:26 a.m. The tornado sirens went off just as the tornado -- an EF-2 -- bore down on our neighborhood.

My wife ran downstairs and I ran upstairs -- to grab Molly the Dog, who was trying to hide behind the Big Blue Chair.

WHAT I DIDN'T KNOW as I ran back down to the basement, with Molly the Dog in my arms and with the sirens blaring, was that the tornado was right over our neighborhood, having lifted off the ground about a mile and a half from our house.

It had plowed into the Millard area of Omaha nine minutes before the tornado warning went out. The only warning anyone had -- at least apart from that telltale freight-train roar before your roof disappears -- was a two-minute heads up from a junior weatherman pulling an all-nighter at KETV, Channel 7.

The sirens were too late because the tornado formed too suddenly.

Channel 3 was no use because no one was there, no one or nothing but an automated crawl across the bottom of the TV screen. Ditto Channel 6. And multiply Channel 6 by Channels 15 and 42.

You know what 3 times 6 times 15 times 42 equals? Nothing.

Thank God for Channel 7 -- and for Chuck McWilliams drawing the short straw Saturday night.

Just as I got downstairs with Molly the Dog, the cable went out. Remember that, by this time, a 2½-mile stretch of southwest Omaha already was a patchwork of downed trees, arcing power lines, missing roofs and blown-apart houses.

MINDLESS INSTINCT directed me to a battery radio, which I switched on for . . . well, I can't tell you why because I knew what I'd find. Nothing.

On KFAB, Omaha's news-talk leader . . . commercials. On the stripped chassis of news-talk KKAR -- which, if it were a car, surely would be missing its engine, its wheels and would be resting on concrete blocks -- there was something from the satellite.

On all the FMs . . . fugeddaboutit. Wait, I think there might have been a live person on Z-92 reading the weather bulletin after a few minutes had passed.

We went back to the crippled television, changed the channel from cable 9 to over-the-air 7 and watched Chuck McWilliams through the snow.

After a few minutes, KFAB and the rest of Clear Channel's Omaha stations came to life with some sketchy live weather coverage . . . as the storm was getting ready to cross the river into Iowa. KKAR also finally came to life -- well, as much life as KKAR ever comes to, being that it barely has a staff.

By the grace of God, nobody died in Omaha in the wee hours of Sunday morning. A few close calls and a couple of minor injuries -- but no body bags, thank the Lord.

The only carcasses strewn about town in the storm's wake were those of the city's radio and TV stations. Well, all but one.

Then again, the tornado had nothing to do with those fatalities. The storm merely exposed the corpses.

IF YOU WANT to see the death notice for American radio, I think I may have run across it Sunday night on NebraskaRadio.com.

Deane Johnson isn't a newspaperman, and he doesn't play one on TV. But as a retired Top-40 program director who used to work for the legendary Todd Storz back when radio was IT, the man knows an obit when he hears one in the street after his neighborhood has just been hammered but good:

Saw a group of neighbors out in the street talking. Joined them. What were they talking about? You won't believe it. They were talking about how you couldn't depend on KFAB any more for information and couldn't watch TV because the power was out. If I were running a station like KFAB, these things would scare the bajeezus out of me.

BETRAYED LISTENERS scare today's pilots of the airwaves? Feh!

Now if the neighbors were investment bankers. . . .

Twistering the night away

Here we go again.

We're due, sometime soon here, for a second-straight evening of Weather From Hell. Welcome to late spring on the Great Plains.

LAST NIGHT, much of Nebraska and Iowa got to pick what was behind one of three curtains -- tornadoes, giant hail or flash flooding. Some contestants got the tornadoes, which -- in some cases -- means you have to give up everything else you've won. Ever.

Others took the giant hail, while many of the remainder ended up with le deluge. A few lucky contestants -- lucky, that is, if you're a masochist -- picked one curtain, then got the other two as parting gifts from a cosmic Monty Hall.

Now, we get to be on this prime-time game show again. Here's the recap, and the pregame preview, from this afternoon's Omaha World-Herald:

More severe weather and a serious threat of flooding were expected this afternoon and tonight in southeast Nebraska and western Iowa.

Wednesday night, the region was hit with a little bit of everything - heavy rain, hail, wind and, possibly, tornadoes.

Reports of tornadoes came in from the cities of Ceresco, Ulysses and Surprise in Nebraska and from near Glenwood, Red Oak and Malvern in Iowa, said Terry Landsvork, observation program leader at the National Weather Service office in Valley.

Landsvork said Plattsmouth, Neb., and Red Oak, Iowa, each had about 5½ inches of rain.

"They are building an ark in Plattsmouth," he said.

Murray, Neb., and Lincoln both reported hail measuring 1.75 inches in diameter. Reports of 1-inch hail came in from around the Omaha metropolitan area, Landsvork said.

A line of storms packing high winds and some suspected tornadoes ravaged Ceresco, about 15 miles north of Lincoln, about 8:30 p.m. The storm knocked out power, downed trees, blew out windows and blew off part of the roof of the town's only tavern, the Barn Door.

Storm debris was scattered across U.S. Highway 77, the location of the tavern and the Mills Squeegee convenience store. A satellite dish and some cinderblocks were blown off the store's roof.

Just west of town, the metal panels of a farm building were strewn around power poles and across a field. Damage to farm buildings also was reported farther west near Ulysses, Dwight and Valparaiso.

Eugene and Betty Tvrdy lost their century-old wooden barn and a machine shed near their farmhouse west of Ceresco.

One of the couple's goats died during the storm when the barn collapsed, trapping the animals. Nine other goats made it out of the rubble safely, Betty Tvrdy said today.

Two of the couple's missing horses were located this morning on the edge of the farmstead. Both horses appeared unharmed.

The goats and horses are staying with a neighbor today while the Tvrdys survey their damage and meet with insurance adjusters.

(snip)

Tornadoes also were reported in Nebraska near Champion, Maywood, Bertrand, Smithfield, Elwood, Kearney and Wauneta. Nearly a half-dozen funnel clouds were spotted in southwest Iowa.

An acreage about two miles south of Emerson, Iowa, home to a family of four, was wrecked by a tornado. Siding and part of the roof were torn from the house, and windows were broken. Trees were down, and limbs and branches were strewn about.

As the storm moved east in Iowa, it damaged another home and then headed into Montgomery and Union Counties.

Larry Hurst, Mills County emergency management director, said the Emerson family was not injured. "A little shaken, but they were able to get safe shelter."

Two barns and a machine shed also were destroyed on the acreage, said Josh Bowen, a friend of the family.

The tornado was among four or five funnel clouds spotted in Mills County on Wednesday evening. No injuries were reported.

MOST PLACES, springtime is seen as the season of rebirth . . . the season of pleasant weather and the warm up to a summer of fun. And that it is.

But out here on the Plains, springtime also is the season of capricious and violent weather. The season during which you just might get unlucky, with everything you have at 5:15 one hot, humid and blustery afternoon gone with the wind by 5:17.

And you consider yourself blessed because you're alive, and your loved ones are alive. Not all are so lucky, as we have seen across the mid-South and Midwest over and over again this spring. Already.

It gives you something to think about this time of year. And it sends a dry-ice chill right down your spine when the tornado sirens sound and, if you're smart, you grab your pets and your loved ones and dash for the basement.

Omaha has been lucky. We haven't seen The Big One in 33 years. But that last Big One -- an EF-4 (out of 5) -- opened a gash that split the city in half and killed three.

Miraculously, only three.

EVEN TODAY, the 1975 Omaha tornado ranks as the second most costly in American history, having wreaked more than a billion dollars' havoc -- 1.1 billion 1975 dollars.

It's going to be another long night tonight. Hope the garden makes it through again.

Headed this way . . . duck!

Reason No. 1 in the ongoing saga of Why I Hate Spring in the Midwest. And it's all headed this way . . . about three hours away.

From The Associated Press:

The Buffalo County emergency manager has issued an alert saying several tornadoes have touched down in Kearney.

The county is asking all residents to remain at home Thursday evening. Travel is discouraged because of storm damage in parts of the city.

The National Weather Service forecast severe weather, including strong thunderstorms and possible tornadoes, for much of the state.

Our capricious, sadistic deity?

Meteorological horrors happen, and one supernatural entity or another ends up getting the blame. But the weather never does.

The pattern holds with some poor, grieving Arkansans trying to make sense of what one can't make sense of, as reported by The Associated Press:

Tonya Selken's home sat in a dip along a ridge on Dog Mountain, where they had a sweeping view of rolling horse pasture and the misty Ozark foothills in the distance. But she didn't choose these two of her grandfather's 210 acres just for the scenery.

This was one of several places the family mapped out for their protection from tornadoes. In the nearly 60 years since the family bought the place on Shady Grove road, they had seen several twisters hop over this spot and touch down harmlessly on the ridge beyond.

"She was in the house once when one went right over the top of her," said her father, Jerry Simpkins.

But on Tuesday, the family's luck ran out.

The 36-year-old letter carrier and mother of four was one of three Van Buren County residents killed in a monster storm that ground a path across the Southeast, claiming more than 50 lives in several states. Her husband Raymond, 38, and their 14-year-old daughter, Ellise, were also seriously injured.

Standing Wednesday amid the debris field of twisted metal and pink insulation, Carmon Lagunes struggled to grasp why God would take her sister.

"That's his wrath," she said, looking toward the wreckage. "For some reason, he's not happy right now and this is. ... Nobody understands God's will. I sure as hell don't understand it.

Said Anita Goodnight, the sisters' aunt: "God didn't do it. Satan did."

Looking around the valley, where locals raise cattle and cultivate shiitake mushrooms, it is hard not to marvel at the capricious of nature. As workers cleared toppled trees and replaced snapped power poles, cows grazed lazily beside barns whose tin roofs proclaim "Jesus Saves."

THE QUESTION is not "Why did God kill somebody with this big ol' tornado?" And it's not a lock that the devil had anything to do with it, either.

S*** happens. And so do bad, bad tornadoes and other deadly meterological phenomena.

If you ask me -- and you didn't -- the proper question is "Why did God permit nature to take its course in such a cruel manner?"

"Why did God, who knows all, choose not to grant a saving miracle in this case, when He has in others?"

The answer goes something like . . . beats me. God's will is a mystery, and so is the interplay between the awesome power of nature and the randomness of dumb luck . . . or dumb misfortune.

We don't understand it, and we never will. At least, not this side of eternity.