bdabye wrote:You're all weather fanatics, what would YOU do if technology collapses, no internet, no TV, no radio..... nothing. It would drive you crazy...not knowing.
What would you do?
For many Storm2k members over age 40, that WAS the way it was when we were growing up.....very little technology and very little weather info available.
My folks didn't buy their first color tv until I was in high school (1976). I didn't have cable tv until 1980.....am old enough to remember when every tv station in Atlanta went off the air at 11:30 p.m. or midnight. If a severe storm event occurred at night, we had WSB radio to rely on and that was it.....no weather radio, no internet, no tv weather cut-ins; and many times, NO warning.
I didn't see my first VCR until 1979....nor a computer. When did I first use a computer to track hurricanes? Age 33.....in 1995 (at my sister's home in Mississippi); when did I come onboard the internet? Some here will probably remember me as "PerryXXL"...as a newbie to the internet in June 2000.
Back when I first became interested in hurricanes (mid-1970's), there was very little "real time" information available. I've spent many frustrating nights trying my best to hear USCG weather broadcasts on shortwave....the same way I tried to track springtime tornado outbreaks listening to AM radio stations halfway across America.....again frustrated sometimes when they would "fade in and out".
I bought my first NOAA weather radio in the early 80's (had a "multiband" radio before that with the weather radio frequencies, but it was weak.....Atlanta @ 162.550 mhz was all I could pickup). Upon learning the Birmingham, Alabama NWS office broadcasts far more (and better) severe storm and hurricane info on their transmitter high atop Mt. Cheaha, I put up an outdoor antenna to pull in their signal.
I was so frustrated at the inability to timely hurricane information in the late 1970's, that was a major reason I started chasing (hurricanes such as David and Frederic); so I could be closer to the action and see for myself what was going down.
I still remember the days of waiting impatiently for a chance to see the black and white weather radar on WSB and WXIA tv on the 5, 6, or 11 p.m. newscasts(and watching it on a small black & white tv; remember getting up early to watch PBS show "A.M. Weather" before going to school.....and honestly don't want to go back there. Now in my early 40's, I'm not as patient as back in my youth....would probably crack up without my internet access, television news/ weather 24/7/365 and wireless home weather station.
A lot of things were indeed better IMO back in the 1970's than they are today, but access to hurricane and tornado information WASN'T one of them. I paid my dues researching weather books in public libraries until my eyes were bleary (and writing NHC after every landfalling major hurricane hoping for a coveted "NHC preliminary" report....maybe even recieve a couple radar or satellite images). I enjoy this weather/ storm/ hurricane information explosion on tv and the internet we've experienced in recent years....and hope and pray it never goes away.
PW
