This is especially for those of you in Cleburne County… I received this message this afternoon….
“I moved to Heflin last Sept and have been disappointed with the weather coverage for our area. I keep hearing that we are in the Atlanta viewing coverage. I don’t know where that came from. I lived in Ga my Whole life until last Sept and never heard of Heflin on the Atlanta stations. True, we do have two Atlanta stations on our cable system but they do not cover our weather. They do not pick it up until it reaches the GA Line. Last Sunday morning when the tornado it was a total surprise. Many people feel we could have received more notice if we are apart of your weather coverage. Please review your policy of covering Heflin weather b/c the next time we may not be so fortunate.”
Here is my response… I am putting this on the blog to help everyone in Cleburne County to understand the situation….
David:
Thanks so much for taking the time to write and for your comments on our weather coverage. You are correct; Cleburne County is in the Atlanta television market. This is because a majority of people in the county watch local stations out of Atlanta. We could love to have you in the Birmingham DMA (Designated Market Area), and that will happen if a majority of people watch local stations in Birmingham. Unfortunately, it is all out of our control. Neilsen Media Research, who handles ratings for television stations, will review the meters in Cleburne County annually, and maybe one of these years we will “get the vote”. I sure hope so.
I agree with your assessment that Atlanta stations don’t do much to cover severe weather for Cleburne County; you might want to take up that issue with them. It is our policy here to provide long form tornado coverage for any county in our market, even the most rural counties. I do not believe any Atlanta station has this policy.
Having said that, we do the best we can, although we can’t promise long form tornado coverage since Cleburne County is “out of market” for us here in Birmingham.
Concerning the tornado during the pre-dawn hours Sunday; we were in long form programming from 11:00 p.m. Saturday until 4:30 a.m. Sunday, and the tornado warning for Cleburne was aired the moment it was issued at 2:39 a.m. during our coverage. We remained on the air until that storm was deep into Georgia. Here is the text of the tornado warning:
BULLETIN – EAS ACTIVATION REQUESTED
TORNADO WARNING
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE BIRMINGHAM AL
239 AM CDT SUN MAY 11 2008
THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN BIRMINGHAM HAS ISSUED A
* TORNADO WARNING FOR…
SOUTHERN CLEBURNE COUNTY IN EAST CENTRAL ALABAMA…
THIS INCLUDES THE CITY OF HEFLIN…
* UNTIL 315 AM CDT
* AT 235 AM CDT…THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE INDICATED A SEVERE
THUNDERSTORM CAPABLE OF PRODUCING A TORNADO NEAR HEFLIN…MOVING
EAST AT 40 MPH.
If you have a NOAA Weather Radio, it should have tripped with that warning when it was issued.
Thanks again for taking the time to write, and if you want Cleburne County in the Birmingham DMA, just tell all of your neighbors to watch local stations our of Birmingham. Have a great week.
James Spann
Chief Meteorologist
ABC 33/40
