Well.

I guess one Deadly Lightning beats a Public Service Announcement.

Tonight was at the same time my best and perhaps my worst shift on the radio.

Outside the sound-proofed studio where I do my talking on air, there is a PC for us to use and a bank of computers that collect … stuff. And a monitor, that is actually a laptop PC, that shows … stuff.

So if you wanted to write your own news, you could look at the News screen and get the AP news feeds. Or if you wanted to write some International News you could click on the International News screen and get those feeds.

And so on. There are maybe fifteen categories of feeds.

Then there is the weather.

I read the weather on air.

A few times a night.

It’s where I often say what my name is … and it requires no fancy set-up to do. Read: there is a music bed already in the feed from the show playing … and it is even already written when I get there from the shift before me. They get it from that National Weather Service screen that you can click on …

Then there are the Weather Bulletins. As in Weather Watches, and Weather Warnings, and Tornado Watches and … well, you get the picture.

Attached to the Bulletin screen … somehow … is an alarm. With an annoyingly high-pitched whistle that goes off each and every time there is a critical Weather Bulletin. And it does not stop the high-pitched loud shrill alarm until you go over to the little box beside the monitor … and press the little black button.

You then read the critically important announcement … and you adjust your Weather announcement. Or if it is critical enough, you go ahead and read it instead of whatever is scheduled.

This hardly ever happens. Ever. The one woman who helped train me said it only happened once in all her years of broadcasting.

It happened tonight.

Forty times.

In two hours.

The first time was right after I read the news six minutes after I started. There were no Watches or Warnings. They had expired. That’s what they told me.

I was in the room, preparing the next break line-up for ten minutes from then … when there was a small timid knocking at the door. I answered it to see the last person from the station … saying the alarm had been going off and she turned it off, but maybe I should check it out.

It said something like this: “The National Weather Bureau has issued a Severe Weather Warning for the following counties (list of about twenty counties … most in our listening area). Severe Thunderstorm Warning … a wide band of damaging thunderstorms … travelling at 65 mph … with winds gusting well over 60 miles per hour … quarter sized hail … deadly lightning … striking … major damage expected. People are warned to not go outside … and to seek shelter indoors immediately.”

Great.

The alarm went off three more times before I could write the weather. And it proceeded like that … all … night.

Include these five other counties. Drop that county. Change the time. Now it is moving at 55 mph. But the gusts are in excess of 70 miles per hour. Now 40 miles per hour. The hail is now one inch in size. Now two inches in size. And on. And on. And on.

The second break was supposed to read like this:

30 seconds of Underwriting … this is important. They pay for the stuff. Should have read like this …

“All Things Considered is made possible by contributions from members like you … and with support from the blah blah blah company which does blahdidy blah blah. (15 seconds worth) AND the blah didey blah blah company which has (15 more seconds)”

This is then followed by a 20 second recorded blurb of some kind with me saying the tag “Coming up at 8:00 here on WPSU.”

Then a required ten second station ID that is supposed to go something like this. “You are listening to WPSU State College and WPSX Kane, listener supported Public Radio broadcasting in HD Digital throughout Central and Northern Pennsylvania.”

But the truth is, all you have to say … legally is “WPSU State College and WPSX Kane” … just like that.

Then there is a 15 second Public Service Type announcement … like “The Cutesy Pootsey Child something or another is having a wonderful child educational something or another at the Wonderful Something Hall from 6-8 on Thursday the blab blah blah.”

First I dropped the listeners like me … and did something more like “All Things Considered is made possible by the blah de blah company (10 second read of almost 15 seconds of stuff) AND the other blahdy company (likewise)”

I followed that with “This is WPSU State College and WPSX Kane.”

Played the 20 second blurb. Did the tag.

Then I did 25 seconds of “Run for the hills, the Deadly Lightning is coming.”

OK, it wasn’t said exactly like that. But I did do it all official-like … well … I did say all the counties, and the warning, and the time it was to expire.

As the evening progressed I shuffled stuff around in much the same manner … reading the important items … and the updated weather warnings.

Although I did trip over some words in the shuffling of it all. And one mans name will never be pronounced like that again, if he’s lucky (something with bow koo ta something or another.)

And the tedious naming of counties in the warning became “Severe Thunderstorm Warning till 1 AM across the entire listening area. Also … (read the most recent awfulizations courtesy of NOAA)”.

Now I am home here typing my socks off.

The house just shook with a blast of thunder.

I’m thinking my blog entry for tonight is done.

I so love this radio announcing thing.