..Gary Dretzka
..Noah Forrest
..Leonard Klady
..R.J. Matson
..David Poland
..Douglas Pratt
..Ray Pride
..Michael Wilmington

As I’m writing these words, late on a Tuesday night, CNN’s Anderson Cooper is fruitlessly trying to explain to viewers the proper way to stand upright -- microphone in hand -- while being assaulted by a Class 4 hurricane. In his inadvertently comic report from the roof of some wind-wracked hotel in Mobile, Cooper is desperately trying to maintain his balance, while also preserving whatever’s been left of his dignity by editors, hundreds of relatively dry miles away.

Hurricane 1, Cooper 0.

Switch to New Orleans, where one of Cooper’s more fortunate comrades is interviewing “vertical refugees” -- pet dogs, included -- in a swank high-rise hotel. And, guess what, they’re having a party … a hurricane party. Over to Biloxi, where Susan Candiotti is standing in a light rain, reminding us how hurricane-strength winds can cause loosely constructed property to come apart at the seams … and, my God, the dreaded “surge” has arrive.

Over on the Weather Channel, a reporter in Gulfport has just asked his videographer to pan to a “weighted” garbage can rolling past them, on its way to points unknown.

“That will give you an idea of the velocity of the winds,” he instructs, as if the wildly swaying palm fronds behind him didn’t already suggest same.

Not a flying cow or tractor is in sight, however. Someone call Jan de Bont.

Watching hurricanes is becoming something of a national obsession -- for those of us unimpressed by the new TV season’s offerings, anyone -- although not for the same reasons CNN would have you believe. I doubt anyone in the embattled region is making life-altering decisions, based on what they’re seeing on television this late in the game. Thanks to modern satellite tracking systems, Ivan’s path has been relatively predictable, as has its strength.

It is now almost midnight in Alabama, which means the only thing we can see is the front-lit reporter -- who ought to be smart enough to come in from the rain -- and whatever’s happening within a 10-foot radius of his microphone. Anecdotal evidence, at best. The real news will come tomorrow morning, when these same cameras will record the destruction and heartbreak, and the rest of us will count our blessings anew.

It would be easy to blame Dan Rather for this sudden epidemic of bizarre behavior on the part of the nation’s corps of hail and hardy TV reporters. The Danimal is the master of mayhem, when it comes to covering hurricanes and other violent conflagrations. If it ain’t “hot,” Rather ain’t there.

As inspirational a figure as he may be, though, news directors have been putting their star reporters in harm’s way ever since the addition of remote trucks to their motor pool. When a station makes that kind of investment in a piece of hardware, everybody in the viewing market is going to know about it. (Although, tit for tat, it would be far more fun to watch an elegantly coiffed anchor try to read the news, from behind a desk, while also being ravaged by the storm.)

Anyway, Rather’s weathering a storm of his own right now, with all hubbub over the possibly-false Bush documents. If not, he’d too be in Mobile or New Orleans, spitting in the eye of Ivan.

No matter how loony this kind of reporting looks to viewers in places where natural disasters and bad weather aren’t lumped together with other show-business disciplines. In places like Tornado Alley and frigid International Falls, people know not to mess with Mother Nature, and don’t appreciate being forced to watch reporters mock death in pursuit of the obvious: it’s nasty out there.

It’s been argued that war correspondents are bringing us something new and vital, too, as they dodge bullets in Iraq, Afghanistan or Liberia. Even that suggestion, though, is hard to buy. War is hell … tell us something we don’t know.

Oh, yeah, that would require actual reporting, not describing what already can be clearly seen.

Still, like car wrecks and forest fires, coverage of such horrors can be hypnotic, if not exactly fascinating or illuminating.

The most fascinating thing I saw all day was footage of a Florida woman so un-intimidated by Ivan that she waded out into the swollen surf, while carrying her toddler daughter in her arms. Sure enough, just as the reporter commented that this unlikely family tableau demonstrated exactly what not to do in a storm, mother and child were upended by a rogue wave. After the moronic mom recovered from the incident, she admitted to the camera exactly what the reporter suggested in his commentary: “I’m an idiot.”

OK. But, why did she do it?

Was it because she saw the newsman’s camera, and wanted to impress folks back home with her courage, or was auditioning for some redneck version of Fear Factor? We know the woman cognizant of her potential audience, because she almost immediately apologized to her mom -- somewhere out there, in TV Land -- for such a bonehead decision. It was her 15 minutes, damn it, and no storm was going to take it away from her.

How, then, though, do you describe the behavior of the reporter in Alabama who volunteered to wade out into a similarly dark and roiling surf, in pursuit of a chunk of floating debris, simply to prove to the news anchor that such wind-blown garbage actually exists … lots of it. He didn’t hazard a guess as to when or how this particular chunk of wood found its way into the water. Was it torn from its former foundation by the winds, or thrown into the surf a week ago by some litterbug? Who knows … who cares? It’s good television.

Or, is it?

Will this fascination with remote storm coverage continue after the first reporter gets clunked on the head by an uprooted palm tree -- as one intrepid soul claimed he was -- or, worse, is beheaded by a flying sheet of tin? Probably not … Dale Earnhard’s death seemingly only made NASCAR that much more popular.

Neither did the unexpected suicide of the principle in a Los Angeles-area police chase actually end the fascination of news directors for such absurdly overamped coverage. Like the unveiling of Janet Jackson’s nipple ring, the outrage merely resulted in demands for a self-censoring five-second-delay button.

Wait! Stop the presses.

The Weather Channel anchor I’m watching actually just reported that people who live in trailer homes are in greater danger than those who follow the advice of the smartest of the Three Little Pigs, and build their house of bricks. He suggested to those watching his network’s hurricane coverage from the presumed safety of their trailer park that this would be a good time to seek more secure surroundings. Duh.

I’m just guessing here, but anyone who still thinks a trailer is a good place to wait out a storm packing 100 m.p.h. winds probably is too stupid, or drunk, to evacuate their humble abode. One viewing of The Wizard of Oz is all most people need to understand what can happen to even the most stable of housing. Like cigarettes, most trailers now are required to prominently display a warning of potential health hazards … aren’t they?

Anyway, why should those reporters have all the fun?

- by Gary Dretzka

September 17, 2004