inane weather coverage

**Aggie** · 13th September 08, 06:55 AM

Well, it is some 7 hours or so later and we here in Bryan/College Station still have power. I'm a little shocked. The center of the storm is two counties to the east of us and we're getting the worst now. Sustained winds at 44mph with gusts up to 70 during the rain bands. The rain has picked up a lot in the last hour and one of our many cedar trees around the house had the top torn off. If we get through this without the power going down I'm gonna have to stop bad mouthing the power company. Frank, based on what I'm seeing I'd say your sister is likely alright. I'm twenty mile north of her. No other building damage.

**Aldisimo** · 13th September 08, 10:31 AM

It's a beautiful day in northwest Austin. Instead of the torrential rain and winds that were predicted, it's warm, sunny, breezy, and dry. But I'm most happy to find out that my family and friends in Houston, though without electricity, are fine, and their homes are still standing!

**JRB** · 13th September 08, 10:42 AM

I noticed that CNN covered absolutely no news last night but the hurricane. They offered nothing new in terms of information all evening (I periodically checked). It seems to me that occassional updates between regular broad news coverage would be just as effective in terms of storm coverage as the total hurricane domination they supplied to the viewers. After three hours and shots of ten different reporters desperately clinging to hotel patio railings I got pretty bored. There was a horrible train crash in LA last evening and I only saw a snippet of news on it.

**Carolina Kiltman** · 13th September 08, 04:02 PM

My prayers and sympathies to all hit by Ike.

As far as the news goes, the budgets have been cut to the point where whether a certain starlet is wearing any underwear is more important than the train wreck in LA, the bombings in London Underground and I could go on and on.

There is a reason I usually only watch TV for the weather forecast and some local news. I do not have cable, nor do I feel any need for it. Yes there is some stuff I would like to watch but not for the price I would have to pay to get that one channel along with 99 others I have no interest in watching.

Unfortunately news is. in the minds of the Media Bosses, only another means of making money, so if it doesn't, it gets cut. I turned on the TV this morning to try and find out what had happened in Galveston . . . . regular programming not even a crawler. I had to go to the weather channel via the internet to find out anything at all. I'll climb down now.