---This is very long, sorry... and most of it is from our coverage of the SPI supercell/tornado from WILL-TV/Radio. Thanks to all of those who expressed your appreciation for our work.
I started the day with my dad, targetting Jacksonville, IL. We met up with Scott Kampas, Colin Davis, Mark Sefried, Darin Kaiser and spent the better part of the afternoon sitting around doing nothing. We debated heading into Missouri and intercepting the two intense southern supercells.. but around 5 PM called it off and headed home for various reasons. Mostly, hating Missouri, and being absolutely sick of the grey clouds and cool temps we had all day. I figured the night was going to be insane across Illinois so I figured we could just head back and get set for that. I had no idea that hours later a large tornado would cross right where we had been sitting for the entire afternoon.
After getting home, I saw the main supercell was still tracking into central Illinois so I decided I would go up to work and watch the storm come into the area. Being the weekend, I was the only one in the office, so I began to wonder what I was going to do about the situation... as our head met. had not arrive back in town yet.
As I'm watching it move right towards Springfield, my boss Ed Kieser comes walking into the office (he just arrive from the Bahamas an hour earlier) and asks me "Are we going to get anything tonite?" He saw the storm I was watching and asked me where it was, and before I even finished explaining to him that it was heading right for Springfield he was freaking out. "Are we covering it?! This is HUGE! This thing is huge! We are going on now, we're interrupting whatever is on both stations and going on.. this is just what we were hoping wouldnt happen!" So he ran down the stairs and told the tv and radio people that Springfield was about to be hit by a large tornado and that we were going on the air in 5 minutes. Ed took over the main computer and asked if I was staying to help him.. I wanted to see the damn thing so I started saying.. "Yeah.. I can stay for a while, but I was thinking I might go out to-" and he interrupted me and told me I wasnt chasing the thing at night.. so I told him I was all his.
He took over the main computer so he could go on the air and be watching the storm, and I fired up the south computer to open our news programs to get him every report that came in on the storm. Its kind of an erie feeling. You watch the storm go directly over a big city, in this case, Springfield. You know there's a tornado in there. And then, once the storm passes the city... you just kind of wait. I just kept refreshing the computer programs, waiting to see what happened. I just kept thinking.. "how bad is this going to be? Yeah, we're covering it.. but are people even paying attention to us?" Then, it started coming in. First.. just reports of roofs missing from homes and businesses. But then more and more bad news... "homes demolished" "six homes severely damaged or leveled, gas leaks and people trapped in homes" It's a pretty crappy feeling. You do all you can to warn people.. but you're still going to have people seriously injured or even killed with a storm like that. But, you realise you can't just dwell on that... because the tornado is still tracking on and heading towards more small towns. I had to run downstairs to let our tv meteorologist in the building (Mike Tunnera) and his appearance was enough to make me worried. I've never seen a weather man, so afraid of the weather. He asked me what was going on.. and I explained to him that Springfield had just been hit. He then went on about how.. "At first I thought this was pretty cool, a huge storm like that coming through the area, it just doesnt happen very often and I was pretty excited... but now that I'm realising what the hell its doing out there.. I feel like I need to throw up"
I spent the next 4 hours running around the building, setting up the tv studio for Mike to go on the air.. giving the tv/radio operators updated information... warning the TV hosts who were running the pledge drive of the storm, which was heading our direction. All the while, I was also scanning the computer looking for everything I could find on the storm as it continued to produce major damage and head this direction. I became more and more worried as I envisioned us having to haul ass to a bathroom as a big damn tornado barreled down on Champaign. Fortunately the storm turned slightly northward when it got closer to us, sparing this area. But now more small towns. More reports came in from Latham, IL and Niantic, IL of homes completely destroyed with the residents trapped in their basements. I also had to answer the phone in the weather office as well as my cell phone with people asking me if they were going to get hit. I tried not to be rude.. but I was way too busy too explain to them all where the storm was going... and tried to tell them if they just listened to our coverage they would find that answer to their questions.
Near the end of the night, we recieved a call from someone in the area who found our coverage "boring" and that he was so upset that he was missing his stupid fucking show. Ed voiced my opinion pretty well. Wtf is that guys problem. Ed went on the air and said.. "we're going to be ending our live coverage for now... but not because of the irrate call we just recieved from a listener. I realise that this storm isnt affecting everyone, and for some of you, this information isnt important. But there ARE people whos lives are being affected by this storm, and it is our repsonsibility to make sure they have plenty of warning time to take action, and save their lives" Not 5 seconds after he mentioned the complaint... the phone lines at WILL lit up with people expressing their thanks for the work that we did that night. Many of them said that we probably saved their life with our coverage and reports. Other people said that it was probably the best coverage of a weather event like that, that they had ever heard. That was the kind of thing that turned my night around. Just about all of the night, I was in a nervous panic. I couldnt seem to move fast enough. I felt like we were doing a good thing, but seeing all the reports of injuries and people being trapped just made me feel like it was no use. The storm was going to do what it wanted, and we werent stopped it. But to hear all the people call and express their gratitude for our hard work made me realise how worth it all of it was. By midnight, I was spent. I hadnt eaten since leaving the house around noon.. and hadnt used the bathroom for hours. When the live coverage ended, I got up... walked downstairs and shut off the lights in the tv studio... used the bathroom, grabbed a glass of water and went outside. I sat down on a bench outside the building, took a deep breath and just slouched down and relaxed for the first time in 5 hours.
I went back upstairs where Ed, Mike, and Dave (who had come to help out, as well as attempt to see the tornado) as well as a couple others who were working at the station were gathered in the weather office. We just discussed what had happened... and discussed the calls that had been coming in. There wasnt much to celebrate however, as even more storms were heading into the area. We took a short break to grab some food/drink and clear up the huge piles of paper from the first storm, and then got ready for round two. Around 2 in the morning another storm moved into the Springfield area, which had already been hit by the large tornado earlier. We went back on the air live, but not continuous this time letting people know that there may be another tornado in the area. Blah blah.. fast forward until about 3 or 3:30 in the morning when it looked like things might finally be calming down. I started cleaning up the office and getting rid of some of the paper. Ed and I were definetly falling asleep at our computers at this time.. so I said I was finally going to head home and get a few hours of sleep before I had to get up to take a test in 4 hours.
