Wednesday, August 09, 2006

HEAR NO EVIL

I can’t think of much else scarier than having a tornado roar toward you in the dark of night. Ooie gooie: if you can hear it coming, but can’t see it coming, you’re scared but you don’t know where to duck.

Here’s a picture of a nighttime tornado said to have hit Sedalia, Mo., this past March 10:

(photo available only to email subscribers)

It reminds me of my old newspaper colleague, who once came in to work and was assigned to report on a massive tornado that rammed through a small town in western Nebraska at o’dark thirty. It was so many hours away by car, he never could have gotten there in time to file a story for the afternoon edition. So he raced to our collection of small-town phone books, and started calling.

He called the grocery store. He called the church. He called people at random from the white pages. No one answered.

Ye Gods! Was the entire town wiped out?

Finally, someone answered at the post office. “Hallooooo?”

Phew! He went into overdrive. “Hello there! I’m calling from the newspaper in Omaha! We hear you had a tornado! Oh, my gosh, I’m so glad to find someone who can tell me what it was like! We have reports of massive destruction – buildings demolished – trees down. Are there people hurt? Anybody killed? What did you see? What did you hear? Tell me all about it! Tell me everything you know!”

On the other end, there was a long, long pause. Was this poor soul in shock at the trauma of it all, the utter chaos, or perhaps injured, unable to speak?

Finally, the reporter heard again: “Hallooooo?”

Turns out he’d reached the one person in town who was hard of hearing. The reporter went through his whole spiel once again, and the poor guy still couldn’t understand. They hung up in mutual frustration.

I don’t know what the paper wound up putting in the afternoon edition . . . but I think the reporter took a long, long, LONG lunch.

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