Waking Up Scared is Never Fun

Each week the announcers in the building take turns being the "weather team". When severe weather breaks out, we have to come in and make sure the information gets to you.

Each of us pair up, one is responsible for the "weather phone" - a phone that is the one number our team of meteorologists can call and alert us to severe weather. I'm the one responsible for that phone this week. If it rings, something is going on and we need to go into action immediately.

Last night I knew there was severe weather rolling through, we had the tornado watch, we had the severe thunderstorms up to the north, but no one could pinpoint exactly when these storms would hit us here in our listening area.

Lynn is my partner this week and I had talked to her around 7 and told her that we had the tornado watch and that the weather looked like it would come through around midnight. I told her I would call her if I got the call from our meteorologists.

I went to bed around 9 and went right to sleep. I had in my mind that weather would be coming through and I would get a call sometime in the night and would have to run to get to the studios. I tossed and turned all night, lightly sleeping because I just KNEW that phone would ring.

My alarm went off at 4:15 this morning and I rolled over, turned it off and looked at the clock. All of a sudden it hit me that I'm on weather duty and I didn't get up to cover the weather! The first thought was, "OH NO, I took the call and went back to sleep!" The second thought was, "A tornado hit and we didn't warn anyone, how many people died because I didn't wake up?" The third thought was, "I am so fired this morning!"

I rushed to my night stand to look at the weather phone. No missed calls, no missed text messages. I pick up my personal phone, no missed calls, no missed text messages, no weather alerts. "Really? No storms came through overnight?"

At this point I'm starting to really wake up and start to think clearly and I pull up the radar and see that the storms didn't come through, in fact, they are still brewing off to our west. At this point I relax because I know people are safe and we didn't miss anything.

Having a wake-up like that is no way to start your day. And now you know what we go through to keep you updated on the weather all summer long. We do it because we care, we do it because we want to keep you safe and we do it because deep down, we love it!