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Killed By A Tornado? How Did You Feel About That?

The US media seizes its opportunity to wring the last vestiges of emotion out of every unfortunate happening, and the recent spate of tornadoes has proved no exception.

Close-up camera shots of survivors, who’ve lost everything except the clothes they’re wearing, linger as inane questions are forced on these unfortunate people, in funereal tones supposedly suggestive of deep sympathy and emotional oneness.

“And how did you feel as the tornado ripped your house from its foundations?” asked one predictable female interviewer on a news channel tonight, of a woman still understandably in deep shock.

How do you think she felt, you stupid cow!? Bloody petrified! She filled her pants – just like you or any one of us would do in that situation!

The woman searched for some answer. “I just prayed to God to spare us,” she eventually whispered, “…and He did. Our house is gone, and everything we had, but He spared our lives.”

Now, let me make it clear from the outset, I have no quarrel with anyone who, faced with near-certain death, prays earnestly for divine assistance. We were all dragged to Sunday School as little kids and taught that Jesus was our friend who spent His time watching over us and keeping us safe.

When a dirty great swirling tornado is bearing down there’s no bugger else going to help us, so we become as little children again, looking to our friend, Jesus, or His Dad, to perform some great miracle and whip us out of the path of doom.

No doubt the woman felt obliged to be grateful.

“Truly a miracle!” breathed the idiot with the microphone.

Here’s where I get very testy with the US news media. What bloody miracle? There was no miracle. For God’s sake, people were lying dead all around! Was this woman some special saint whom God, in His infinite wisdom, decided to save? Did He look down from Heaven at the tornado, see this woman, and think:

“Yes, I’ll save her. Fuck the rest!”

What kind of God are these news people trying to market?

A tornado is a natural event. That’s the truth of it. It’s not controlled by any God, whether Jehovah or Zeuss or bloody Peter Pan. This woman lived because she wasn’t ten feet further to the left, or twenty yards to the right, or in her kitchen rather than her bathroom.

The news media is supposed to give us the facts. It has a duty to be informative, not dish out heavenly propaganda on behalf of the Church of the Stupid and Uninformed.

How many times of late have I heard news anchors ask their ‘weather people’, “Why are we suffering so many tornadoes at this time of year?”

The answer they get is always a load of gobbledygook. “Oh, well, there’s an upper level disturbance creating problems with unusually low pressure over Canada and the jet stream’s not in the right place, and anyway, it’s all down to El Niño.”

No it’s not. It’s all down to global climate change – global warming. And they know it. They just can’t admit it.

The records show that from the start of this decade the numbers of tornadoes during the first three months of the year have increased every year, from 49 in 2002 to a staggering 359 in 2008 (the one exception being 2004 when the figure dropped by 2). Between 2009 and 2011, the figures fell slightly but were still around three times higher than those at the start of the decade. 2012 has seen a recombustion, with an alarming 274 tornadoes, and it’s still only the beginning of March.[1]

What these figures don’t show is the increase in ferocity. I’m sure it’s painfully obvious to any observer that tornadoes are becoming more ferocious, wider, and generally more deadly.

The painful truth is it is the slothfulness of governments in general, and the US Congress in particular, to tackle climate change that is resulting in more and more deaths from increasingly violent weather.

Not only has Congress failed to enact legislation, but in league with big business, it has demonstrably set out to hoodwink the American citizen into believing climate change isn’t happening.

The science is now unassailable. Climate change, global warming, is upon us. Our chance to avert it has past. The tornadoes and their resulting loss of life will continue to escalate, along with other violent storms and severe weather of the like never before seen.

Sadly, neither Jehovah, Zeuss, nor bloody Peter Pan, will be performing miracles to save us from these events, despite the efforts of the news media, and, no doubt, stupid cows with microphones will continue asking inane questions of the stunned and battered survivors.

[1] “Monthly and Annual U.S. Tornado Summaries” NOAA’s National Weather Service.

3 Replies to “Killed By A Tornado? How Did You Feel About That?”

  1. Whut?
    The Invisible Cosmic Housekeeper is lying down on the job? Or selecting just her precious faves to live, out of the discarded, dead and bleedy ones?
    And these TV interviewers, well thank ICH I don’t have a teevee. My brain would explode.
    XO
    WWW

  2. I agree, on all points, RJ! Though I didn’t see the news items you mention. In fact I only picked up news of recent tornadoes accidentally on the net. Have tried to avoid all TV news and comment recently. I’d better start watching forecasts of bad weather outbreaks though – THAT time’s upon us already.

    Not only do twisters seem more in number and more violent (if that’s possible),but last year outbreaks were more severe to the east of Tornado Alley (which is our alley). We found this to be very nocticeable. Weather people say that El Nino was the reason and that this year it’s not as strong – so we’ll likely have to welcome back our usual twisting crop.
    Oh joy!!

  3. WWW – no TV? You don’t know what you’re missing! No, on second thoughts, maybe you do… 😉

    Twilight – poor old El Niño, it gets blamed for everything these days. Funny, we hardly ever heard of it before global warming appeared on the scene.
    Take care down there in Oke.

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