Can't Safety Take Precedence Over Profit Just Once?

Tweet

I'm a weather geek. I don't know just why, but I always have been. I even wanted to be a weather guesser (what we called "Aerographer's Mates" in the Navy) when I joined the Navy. The modern era has made that appetite so much easier to feed, thanks to weather apps, 24-hour weather TV stations, and live feeds of breaking severe weather coverage. It's that last thing that has me bothered. Not that you can pull up a TV station's web site and watch news coverage of the weather (that part I love), but the fact that profit seems to be more important than breaking weather coverage, even when it is literally a life-or-death situation. When there is severe weather in the area the luxuries we take for granted can disappear quickly: things like electricity and cable. That usually means people huddle in their "safe places" with a cell phone to watch the coverage. And, wouldn't you know it, most of these TV stations make you sit through a 30-second commercial before you can see if your house is in the path of a tornado. There are even some web sites that interrupt the coverage every five minutes with a commercial, regardless of what is happening in the news coverage! I understand that these web sites and TV stations need to make money. When it comes to a severe weather outbreak most stations will abandon regular programming for wall-to-wall coverage (today is the fifth anniversary of the 2011 "Super Outbreak" of tornadoes, and you can go to You Tube and watch eight uninterrupted hours of tornado coverage from that day in Alabama!), and in that regard they lose advertising dollars. But sheesh, when the only option someone has is a live feed on a cell phone to know whether or not their home or their loved ones are in the path of a tornado, can't they just put aside the "your video will play after this commercial" until after the severe weather threat has ended? Here's an appropriate song....