Non film post: Prepping for severe season

2011 was a rather trying year for me, and 2012 wasnt a whole lot better.  Both years filled with severe tribulations and many times I was this close to throwing in the towel...however, I somehow fought through and started 2013 full of potential.

In 2013 I have changed my outlook on life, and while I've still had some trials, I have refused to allow myself to dwell on the bad or let it run my life as I had done in the past.  I've had much more good this year, including meeting a lady who has done nothing but improve my entire life.

That being said, however, there has been one thing that has haunted me from last year...one thing I still feel the need to address and correct:  severe weather coverage.

For those who don't already know, my desire to turn my facebook and twitter pages into a news feed in times of emergency stems from September 11, 2001.  On that day, you couldn't access the major news sites, but there was a forum site I was a member of that was accessible and providing updates as fast as anything you were seeing on TV.  So, I decided that never again would anyone I know have to fight to get information, and have been doing pretty well till this past season.

We covered the early outbreaks pretty well, but kinda dropped the ball in May I feel.  For example, I knew May 19th was going to be a busy day but still scheduled a trip to see Star Trek Into Darkness and then a soccer game after.  I was actually on the field when the storm that produced the Shawnee tornado starting putting down tornadoes.  We had to pack up and race home, a waste of 10 minutes, to start covering the storm. In fact, in photos from that day, you can see I'm still in my game shorts as Im plotting radar paths.

We were similarly slow on the draw on May 20th and May 31st.  After the Moore tornado I was lamenting on facebook about the loss of life, and a friend told me that she thought we'd done everything we could.  My comment was simply "obviously not everything".  

This year, we will have improvements in the "fatcave" as we so lovingly call it.  We've gone from 3 PC's to 4, including one specifically earmarked for providing faster alerts and radar feeds.  We've bookmarked major news sites so we can access information faster.  On days with ANY level of enhanced severe risk, we'll pay much closer attention to alerts and evolving conditions and keep plans to the absolute minimum so we don't get caught short again.  We also have the capability to add up to 2 additional PC's as need arises.

Also, while the twitter feed has been (and will remain) public, the facebook page will make ALL weather posts public, so you can tell your friends to use that page for immediate and potentially lifesaving information. 

And in potentially big news, there is early talk of adding a live stream to the arsenal, so you can just watch whats going on in real time.

2014's severe weather season kicks off in about 2 months.  As always, we'll be here to watch it for you, and with more vigilance this year.