Why Does the Media Always Portray Storms As a Surprise...

[Elaine Spencer]

I suspect that many of the people who claim they "had no warning" don't mean that literally.

What they mean is that they did not personally observe the storm (by seeing the funnel cloud, hearing the wind/freight train noise, etc.), or realize that it was actually going to hit them, until a few seconds or minutes before it hit. They may very well have heard the sirens or been watching TV weather bulletins, but assumed that the actual storm would miss them (as it does the majority of the time when warnings are issued) until it was too late, or nearly too late, to escape it.

Also, storms like what we saw yesterday are going to be a shock and a surprise to anyone who gets hit no matter how much advance warning they have.

 

[Toni Scholz]

Isaac is right: The inaccurate coverage of storms by the media ("...hit without warning"; "storm was a surprise") reinforces not taking the warnings seriously! It is a significant problem.

I think it goes deeper than that. I believe it taps into the "nobody told me", or "nobody told me it was going to be this bad", mentality that permeates every disaster (or missed homework assignment at my house). If "nobody told me", then I don't have to take responsibility for not being responsible. Ergo -- it's your fault and what are you going to do about it?

 

[cstrunk]

I just think that there is a segment in society that tends to be oblivious to the world around them. No matter how good the warning is and the number of media outlets providing excellent coverage, there will be people out there that ignore these threats. I also think that since we have "cried wolf" so many times in the past (even if a tornado was confirmed in a warning area, only a fraction of that warning area is affected by the actual tornado), that people are overly desensitized to warnings. Here's a post from another message board I frequent:

"Why is he still in the 3rd story of his apartment?

That video kind of reminds most of us in Iowa City when the tornado hit (except the Bama tornado is much bigger than the IC one was). My friends and I, and a lot of us in the dorms just stayed in our rooms, even while the warning was blaring. Whoever didn't stay in their rooms, went outside. I had an exam to study for, so I just plugged in my headphones, cranked up the volume and read. It wasn't until later that I realized that an actual tornado had hit the city proper, several blocks away."