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A superheavy news day saw a pair of massive stories compete for top spot. A lethal line of overnight storms stretching from Mississippi to the Ohio Valley narrowly qualified as Story of the Day. The weather system spawned as many as 50 tornadoes that killed more than 50 people, with Tennessee and Arkansas hardest hit. ABC and NBC led their newscasts from the campus at Union University in Jackson Tenn. CBS led from Arkansas. The Super Tuesday Presidential primaries took second place by mere seconds (both stories totaled 17 minutes of coverage--a combined 60% of the three-network newshole) as John McCain was voted the unassailable frontrunner among Republicans and Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton found themselves tied in such a tight deadlock that their race may not be resolved until April.

Being such a visual story, it was appropriate that television news should choose the storms' havoc as its lead. There was a spectacular fire when a natural gas pumping station was demolished near Nashville. The dormitories at Union University were flattened. "All night long one funnel cloud after another touched down," ABC's Mike von Fremd (embargoed link) recounted. NBC's Lester Holt called it "the worst one-day onslaught" from tornadoes in ten years. CBS' Nancy Cordes pointed out that "many people knew for days that the conditions were ripe for tornadoes" yet "there were so many of them and they came so quickly they just did not have time to get to shelter."

In Atkins Ark, NBC's Don Teague (part of the Holt videostream) called the storm "so big and black" that residents thought it was "just a cloud--at least they did until it started snapping trees in half." Next morning, said ABC's Steve Osunsami, an unidentified man was found lying dead in an Atkins street and another neighbor was found dead in a tree. NBC's Ron Mott introduced us to Sam and Jackie Matthew, of Jackson Tenn, married 50 years, who lay down together in a bathtub to take shelter from the storm.

NBC anchor Brian Williams had meteorologist Bill Karins of his network's WeatherPlus retrace the satellite picture: "They happened after dark. They are hard to see. They were moving at 50mph to 75mph. That is very little lead time." He pointed to one long-track super cell that was central Tennessee's deadliest in 75 years, stretching 300 miles: "This one storm will be studied for a long time." CBS sent Kelly Cobiella to Tennessee, which she called "tornado country--it is just not tornado time." In an average year, only 59 twisters have touched down by this early in February; in 2008 there have already been more than 200.


Andrew Tyndall 2/8/08 4:43:55 pm

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