What happens when you cross an idiot weather person with a Chinese television station? You get a terrific video of safety “China style”.
Actually, that is not fair. I’ve seen far worse in this country. Perhaps I should explain.
We’ve all seen the TV weatherman giving a live remote from the beach during a hurricane. They tell us how dangerous it is, how we should listen to authorities, and how we should stay in safe shelter, all while they attempt to stay vertical and hope that a tree branch traveling at Mach 3 doesn’t sever their head from their body. As a Florida resident with a healthy respect for the power of these storms, I watch these buffoons with a tremendous amount of incredulity. Their presence on the beach at the height of the storm can only serve as an enticement for other moronic Darwinian candidates to head out there and experience the same.
Frankly, I am always rooting for the tree branch. One good decapitation on live television should slow everyone down a bit.
So yesterday, when I saw a video of a Chinese “weather gal” giving a live report on the landfall of Typhoon Haikui, it was a surprise to see that her employer clearly cares about her. As she stood in the middle of the road being buffeted by high winds and heavy rain, it was easy to see she was secured by a heavy rope. I suppose this was to keep her safe, or it could have just been a low tech way to keep her in frame. Or maybe they wanted to make sure the tree branch made a clean shot and didn’t knock her out of the view of her rapt audience.
Whatever the reason, the impression was that her employer cares about safety. Or they are tired of always having to find new weather people. She appears to have a relatively small frame, so perhaps they should hire weather people with more “substance”, if you know what I mean. Of course, that may not make a difference. I once saw a pre-gastric bypass Al Roker knocked on his fanny during a landfall in Pensacola. That would suggest a larger person may act more as a sail in these conditions, and makes me think a tethered pre-gastric bypass Al Roker would take off like a kite, jerking around at the end of his tether like, well, an idiot weatherman at the end of his rope.