Well it's meant to be scary for a reason. It's meant to ALERT, INFORM, AND INSTRUCT you on what to do and where to go. You should always HEED those alerts and bulletins that's on RADIO and TV since they are giving you the time to PLAN and ACT. If you're not heeding those messages, you're going get yourself KILLED and that's a FACT. And it is that very same fact that has been proven over the decades as far as FLOODS, HURRICANES, & TORNADOES are concerned, to be FATAL.
@@DanTheMan1985ful I don't think it's really supposed to be scary, but it sounds that way because the alerts are automated by computers to get the message out there as quickly and concisely as possible with minimal mistakes in speech that could slow the message or cause problems.
Those weather alerts scared me to death and especially when they were being read over the air by those robotic voices. I always thought I’d be the one to die in whatever area they described.
I actually saved an episode of an anime series I was following last year, in which a Japanese weather warning was scrolling across the bottom of the screen throughout most of the episode, much like the Columbo clip here. I found it interesting, even if the ticker was untranslated, as I wasn't sure if anyone outside the US did that sort of weather warning.
Fun fact: EAS alerts are usually limited to 2 minutes, which might be why it cuts off. This two minute rule doesn't cover Emergency Action Notifications. (national alert) Not sure about National Periodic Tests, though. 2021 edit: FEMA and the FCC are considering options to do persistent alerts, meaning this cutoff may either be changed, or the alerts could be changed in another way.
@@clockwork1203 I always assume they're confused children either trying to google something or trying to write a comment but have no idea what to say (they might also just think "randem = funneh!!!")
I worked within five kilometres of the Pickering Nuclear power plant in Ontario, Canada, during university and they used to test their outdoor warning sirens whenever they got around to doing a test, often in the fall ideally once a year. Most of the residents in the area can't even tell the nuclear sirens from a fire truck siren. I hated the tests though since my work would hold a nuclear drill at the same time. Everyone out of the warehouse and into the cafeteria to line up and pretend to take potassium iodide to protect your thyroid, then back to work like nothing happened
Same, our was near a school. And add to that the fact that our high school football stadium had a smaller siren that they’d use whenever our team scored a touchdown, Friday nights in our neighborhood were quite noisy.
Me too, right up there with my least favourite sounds of the fire alarm at school and smoke detectors. We used to pick up WNED's PBS station in Toronto on the bunny ears from across the lake and the test tones were frightening and confusing. We don't do that kind of shrieking alert here
We used to have those when I was young in North Dakota, and it scared the shit out of me. It was always the fire chief and they would break in whenever there was a tornado close by or if a child was missing or possibly abducted. I just knew it was a dire emergency!
Until around 2002 or 2003, our cable (through time warner) would only show EAS alerts on channel 20. Any other channel told you to tune there "for further details."
Regarding that "god is watching us" part, I have a similar story. I think it was 1987 (I was 11), my mother was driving us home from Century III Mall on rt. 51 (just south of Pittsburgh), in a torrential downpour. My mom and I had been arguing about something just before, but was then just not talking for a few minutes. Then the car started spinning (hydroplaning), we smashed into the cement divider, and when it was over, we were still pointed in the right direction on the road, the car had shut off, and there were no cars, anywhere around us, but here's the thing: both of us recalled there being several other cars close to us just before the crash & they should have been part of the accident as well. My mom turned the car back on, and we resumed the ride home, uninjured but very shaken up. But the kicker is... there was an Amy Grant cassette in the tape deck, but not inserted (when inserted, it would play automatically). The force of the crash inserted the tape & when mom turned the car back on, it immediately started playing the tape, which was at the chorus of the song "Angels Watching Over Me". Certainly one of the strangest events of my life.
14:05 I live in Denver and I have to say, Channel 4's old weather alert was quite a chill raiser, I remember with their old circle logo they had a graphic of what kind of storm it was going to be in the upper left and the bar with the scrolling text was red. Las Animas County is 200 miles from Denver actually, but it makes sense that they would broadcast the alert because Denver TV has since 1979 been available on satellite and most places in Colorado prefer to watch Denver channels, even in places where Colorado Springs stations would have priority.
During the April 3rd 1974 outbreak, just as WHIO Dayton did earlier, our local NBC affiliate, being the only local station with a radar at the time, also put it on the air as bad weather approached. All we got was hail and some wind damage. Poor Xenia Ohio got much, much worse.
Ours up here in the Mitten State were red where I was. Imagine a whole screen suddenly turning red, with a little white image of what kind of storm it was gonna be in the middle, and white flashing letters reading "Tornado Warning" or whatever, with the EBS noise. Of course it always happened at night, and it always scared ten shades of shit out of me.
Funny story just happened. We have some severe weather going through our area, one of the local news stations have their usual radar coverage when the EAS broke in for a Required Monthly Test! Better yet, it doubles as a TD because the blue bar that the EAS text occupied is still on the screen after the EOM!
I don't think I commented the first time I watched this, but I have a distinct correlation of songs and warnings too - both of them happened in 1973 in Heath Ohio. Both times, it was Newark Ohio's WCLT-AM (the tower was right behind our house) broadcasting tornado warnings in-between songs, both times it was for our county but not right where we were, and thankfully they were moving away. But they would roll right into the next song on the playlist, and there's nothing more terrifying to a 10 year old kid as the tornado warning ended and the opening of "My Love" by Paul McCartney and Wings started...with its opening sounding very much like a tornado siren..::shudder: A similar memory forever marrs "You Are The Sunshine Of My Life" by Stevie Wonder, although at least it didn't have something that sounded like a siren at the beginning. If you ever find any TV or radio alerts from Central Ohio from the 1970s, give me a shout - I'm trying to find copies of the various Columbus TV stations' bulletin slides for a project i"m working on...great show, dude!
I remember last year, when for the first time of my life i traveled to the USA from Italy, for an holiday at friend's home. In Wilkes-Barre, PA. While i was watching TV i see that damn red stripe of the EAS doing some kind of test. Considering the river in that town is famous to reach high levels, i thought i was going to drown ahaha
I seem to remember during the EBS era, when our cable system was interrupted with a Severe Thunderstorm or Tornado Warning, after the attention signal, we would hear audio from WJR 760. Makes since, considering they are the strongest AM station in Michigan, and they have one of the best weather departments in the state.
That would be because WJR was the primary EBS station for southeastern Michigan, the one that was the hub of the entire region. Interesting trivia note: Except for a very few stations in the extreme northwestern Upper Peninsula that have permission to use Northern Michigan University's station instead, *every* broadcast station in Michigan is required to use a directional antenna to monitor WKAR-FM from Michigan State University 24/7, as it's the primary entry point for *state* EAS activations (as opposed to national or regional ones). Why WKAR? Because it's the Michigan State Police in charge of activating it, and their headquarters is literally across the street (Harrison Road) from Michigan State University. This is also why WKAR has a clear frequency at the maximum permitted FM wattage...
KCAU is my local station here in Siouxland, a few points to that clip... One the interrupt only occurred on the Jones Intercable (South Sioux City) cable system, and two the Jackson referred to is Jackson, Nebraska, a town to the west of South Sioux City. CableOne, the Sioux City cable system, would go to a static computerized "turn to a local station slide" when a major storm would hit.
4:20 Dude! WTVW Evansville?! I live an hour away from there! (And we get the local stations from there.) Man it must be easy to get footage of a Tornado warning for that area. We get hit with Storms, Tornadoes and floods ALL the time! Shoutout from Western Kentucky!
I used to see minute-by-minute radar tracking of severe storms and tornadoes on one of the Minneapolis stations on cable (or was it Devils Lake-Grand Forks?) while living in Manitoba in the Nineties. It was interesting that they could tell you the very minute that one would pass over a tiny town.
Having spent much of my youth in Aurora, I fondly remember that big voice and siren echoing for miles whilst walking home from school in the afternoon. The first time I heard it, I about freaked out... By the way, I feel fortunate to have found you here in you-tube land and appreciate what you're doing.
I keep my cameras (video/still) in cases that are hung on a hook. You never know when shit starts to go down especially in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I've been there where I was looking for my camera when the sirens were going off. It's worse than dying in a tornado. It's best to have your equipment readily accessible so you don't get caught with your pants down while a cow crashes through your living room....
Also that ending.....RIP But same happens to me, big fucking scramble a-la Twister to get my equipment set-up, I'm never prepared either. HIT THE DITCH!
As an EAS Enthusiast myself, Yeah, there pretty horrifying as hell for the masses. Over the years though, I did get used to be into the Emergency Alert System then later, NOAA Weather Radio All Hazards. The end, that is the end of my statement, no more questions.
Remember when the movie "Duel" starring Dennis Weaver was first broadcast on ABC Network in about 1971? At the most exciting part of the movie, WREX Rockford, IL had a technical difficulty. Left a lot of viewers very irate.
I was in Denver in June 1993, when a monster tornado was rolling from the dia airport to wray. and I was listening to the Rockies game and then on 85 koa would broadcast tornado warnings all afternoon long, I was off 92nd and federal, and had a awesome view of it. them days was neat, and with a police scanner I could hear it all!
Once there was an emergency alert while it was pouring outside. In the background of the voice I could hear the sound of rain slamming onto a metal roof. The mic was so shitty you could hear the rain louder than the voice. I'd hate to be the guy on the mic, it was four o'clock in the morning. I'm certain it was a live mic and not a pre-recorded message.
My local ABC station does weather crawls (when not in rolling coverage mode), complete with like four seconds of the EBS-EAS beep overlaid on the audio to announce its presence.
Another funny thing about the EAS: During the 2021 national test, certain EAS systems crashed to a Linux command line mid-alert, saying something about it running out of memory.
WFLD was using a part of a song called "Fly Like An Eagle" from The Steve Miller Band in that weather warning from 1978. I think that they found out just how bad of an idea that it was to use that song for the warning tones when it came to tornado warnings.
NOAA Weather Radio FTW. I've been watching your videos for a couple of months now and I love how you present these often known but little understood topics of pop culture. It's very unique and not like anything else out there.You deserve even more viewership than you have now for sure. Keep up the great work.
After living in the Dixie Vally for only just a few years? I got my fill of NOAA EAS activations. Normally? It went pretty smoothly, and when combined with an actual warning, the sirens would be spinning just at the same time the warnings started coming through. Felt like they got it down to a science. The crazy part today is, consumer radar apps are getting so good that you can almost spot the next tornado warnings before/as the NOAA does. I got the feeling though that most people that were from there, didn't pay as much attention to weather alerts as say somebody from out of state would.... Or maybe just those of us who finds stuff like this interesting... Still better than having the police department hijacking my Wonder Years. Can't have that.
By far the creepiest alert sirens I have heard were the ones installed at the University of Massachusetts after the Virginia Tech massacre. Ostensibly they were to protect the students from a mass shooting and have been used when they thought a shooyer was on campus,but they are more used for weather alerts. Creepy as hell.
Hmmm, that clip from WMAQ is odd. They broadcast from Chicago, but all the counties mentioned (Sangamon, DeWitt, Macon, etc) are in Central Illinois...far beyond the reach of WMAQ's signal. Perhaps they were being carried on cable in some markets. I was raised in Macon County, but wasn't born until 1977. I don't remember WMAQ having any presence in the area, though.
I'm 27 and I remember watching the wx channel in the mid 90s and patiently waited for local on the 8s and watched weather star 4000 do it's thing. I'd always go so excited every time I'd hear of a tornado watch. I'm very nostalgic in the same sense. It's some of my most fond childhood memories. I remember I had a 49mhz walkie talky that I put a piece of tape around the PTT button and put it outside and sat down in my basement listening for a tornado to come on the other ht lol. Im so glad I found your channel, it really brought back allot of memories. W9CLR
in my area in north Texas, the primary EAS station is 820 AM WBAP, and Secondary EAS is 96.3 FM KSCS. and most radio and TV stations play the alerts for bad weather after they air love on WBAP is relayed back to KSCS and all the other station's EAS equipment.
It annoyed me back then how the stations would pick and choose what alerts they would broadcast. They could have set it automatically which some in other areas did, but here they broadcasted them manually. At night, forget it, that warning wasn't getting relayed by the overnight mater control guy.
Fine, here we go....June 1977 Hobart, Indiana. My mother, grandmother, sister and me were shopping at the Shultz Bros. (now the Dollar General). The skies grew unusually dark. Then the wind started whipping up, the doors got sucked open, and the windows shook violently like I thought they would shatter into a thousand pieces! An employee took us down into their basement. Do your research. The tornado did some real damage to Hobart, Indiana June 29(?) 1977.
I remember KATV out of Little Rock, AR used to have an alert tone that would scare the shit out of me. Made me think the tornado was right next door to me...
Very entertaining and informative Ben! Especially learning about your personal experiences with these matters-being right in tornado alley basically. And in particular it was great to learn about those local access warnings. I was wondering what that unnerving,possibly seizure inducing noise on your 'EBS Tribute' Archive video was called. I live in Maine-home of the 'Nor Easter and never had to hear one of them because non of our weather is totally localized in the manner of a tornado. Again fantastic Archive episode!
You like oddities, though you may not have been directly in the line of fire if the 2011 Super Outbreak, I was. I’ve lived in Alabama most of my life (with brief stints in Wisconsin and Texas… military family).. and everything about that day was odd. From the early morning surprise storms that took half the state’s weather radio towers and sirens out (along with my roof and the power.. meaning hundreds of thousands of us never saw the BIG ONES coming.. 8 EF-4’s and 3 EF-5’s just in Alabama alone.. 252 people died).. I had the misfortune of moving us from our home that was damaged by an early morning EF-2 to a friend’s house where we were later hit by an EF-4. (The same one that famously hit Tuscaloosa and Birmingham). My friend lost his wife, father, and daughter (7 years old) in these later storms. It was absolutely wild and though we had no power the local meteorologists (including the famous James Spann) had been warning us for days it was coming. But then this line came through before daybreak and the sun came out! So naturally, with no power and a beautiful blue sky day after many people thought “blown forecast, we’re good, 5 fatalities and a few torn up neighborhoods… nothing we can’t handle in the south.” I remember getting gas for our generator to keep the deep freezer cold and actually making a food donation to a local church that had advertised they were taking displaced families. I went home. My husband went to work (night shift at Honda who despite hearing the weathermen saying “this isn’t what you think, the sun is making this worse, people will die, nobody should be out FORCED their workers in anyway.. though it’s why my friend lived being as he worked at the plant too he was also not there while his whole family was destroyed which he still battles with). I had my radio on listening to James Spann and Jason Simpson (hero meteorologists in my heart, always) when they said a huge wedge was on camera and headed for the campus of Tuscaloosa. “All you can do is pray for those people” is a phrase I had never heard out of the mouth of the most calm, cool and collected meteorologist I had ever seen. He says in a book “I think people did pray when I said that.. it just slipped right out”. And he is right, I did. It is the only time in my life I have gotten down on my knees to pray (I say campus of Tuscaloosa instead of city as it is home to the University of Alabama, the largest university in the state and most widely known for their football program). I took the hands of my 4 and nearly 2 year old and got on my knees and prayed.. these are 18-25 year olds. They’re away from home. Some don’t even know what tornadoes are.. much less how to survive one. People who did everything right didn’t survive that one. But then my phone started going crazy “Are you watching this?!” In the chaos of my day.. trying to tarp up the damage and deal with the power company and take care of two babies I hadn’t told anyone our house had already taken damage and I couldn’t see anything. They just kept saying on the radio it was large and moving into Birmingham where my parents live. My mother called in tears “there are 8 different types of insulation falling in the yard.. they just named us, and you’re in line next. If I don’t hear from you again know I love you and the kids so much… get out of that house NOW and somewhere underground.” Before I could argue a friend a few miles further east called crying and said “Do you see this?! Where is your husband?! You can’t survive this above ground, you have to come here NOW!” I didn’t question her. I went. The tornado briefly lifted.. after tearing apart half the town I grew up in but sparing my parents. I made it to my friend’s house in time to see it come back down… right on top of the tiny town we had taken refuge in. The roar came first.. then hearing things hit the house. Then the power went out.. we got in the most underground part of her basement underneath a bed. We told the kids it was a game. Our ears popped. But while it took half her neighborhood, her house stood. But there was nothing recognizable outside. My husband was safer in the Honda plant which did have a huge underground shelter. Cell service was gone then.. so I couldn’t check on him. It took hours to finally make it back to our house, which the EF-4 had conveniently skipped over before bearing down on us. So it’s a long story. And even knowing we had been hit and would have to have a new roof and wait for them to restore power (almost 2 weeks) we took donations of anything we could find to put a life back together. Kids clothes and baby supplies, making 100 boxes of small toys and activities for children we placed in pencil boxes.. crayons and toy cars and yo-up’s and little flashlights.. activity books that would fit… I don’t even know where we came up with that idea but they went FAST. Kids needed a distraction. I even remember taking a crib and mattress and diapers and formula that had never been opened and we had no need for… We were on the ground days before FEMA arrived. We volunteered in Pleasant Grove which had been hit hard, helping families get necessities (my job was going through clothing donations.. making two piles “really good clothes” and “these could be play or work clothes” and then having a “this was a sweet thought but nobody can use this” garbage bin. If you wouldn’t wear it even to cut your grass it’s not a donation, you’re just using us as a dump site. Though I try to imagine it was someone giving the best they had.. we’re a poor state.) But everything about that day and the aftermath was odd. Watching born in the blood republicans hugging Michelle Obama… because none of that mattered. We got to meet the PRESIDENT because he cared enough to come see what we had been through. And while that sounds terrible.. less than a month later Joplin happened. And actually April 15 we had what we thought would be the new record day of over 40 tornadoes. This day we had 62. At one point they had counted 16 down at once. It’s like every “end of the world” weather movie you’ve ever seen. I have personal photographs and the entire wall to wall coverage which I am SO grateful for is on UA-cam if you want to see once it started just how fast it went haywire. (I’m glad because it meant I got to see it at all. Having had no power since before the sun came up, I didn’t see the monsters as they came.. only the aftermath. I stumbled on Jason and James’ combined 13ish hours of coverage years later. I can’t believe we survived that. And I also can’t believe so many didn’t. Over 250 fatalities in less than a day from the weather. It’s been almost 11 years and still we get very edgy when tornadoes are forecast. And we still get them regularly but nothing like that. The last day like that was 4/3/74. They call them generational outbreaks but I imagine I’ll be alive for the next one, but probably a grandmother several times over by then. I know this was long and more information than you likely needed… but if ever there was an oddity in the weather here outside of having a Blizzard in 1993 in the middle of March (in Alabama we rarely see snow) then this is it. You seem to like weather, so I just was throwing this out there for you. (I had turned 10 just 4 days before the blizzard so I remember it as well).
ChrisKewl If the logo was yellow or red and was a circle with a stylized 'Wx' in it and it was in the upper left-hand corner with the weather crawl at the bottom then the local station where I grew up in the 80s (KLTV) did the exact same thing.
You must find WNBC's weather warning slide from I want to say the early 90s? Just the News 4 New York logo against a cloudy sky with the moon peeking behind one cloud. Pretty creepy...
Oh Lord, the first one you show is from East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana, where I grew up. I remember that screen and that voice. I remember it was VERY real for me on June 8, 1989.
A long time ago (2009, I believe) I remember getting interrupted by tornado warnings. It was just annoying to me since I couldn't watch (don't ask how I remember this) the Little Einsteins. Also, this was in Denver, Colorado as well.
The Weather Channel once aired a statement "You want an ark? Well, we NOAA guy!"
That was beautiful
I died when I stepped on a Lego
double puns
That was during their local on the 8s segments.
@@missbleach8767 same
That cold, robotic voice they now use for the weather alerts scared the shit out of me as a kid. In fact, it still kind of does.
RamtroStudios in my area it always sounded like the announcer was deepthroating the microphone
Well it's meant to be scary for a reason. It's meant to ALERT, INFORM, AND INSTRUCT you on what to do and where to go. You should always HEED those alerts and bulletins that's on RADIO and TV since they are giving you the time to PLAN and ACT. If you're not heeding those messages, you're going get yourself KILLED and that's a FACT. And it is that very same fact that has been proven over the decades as far as FLOODS, HURRICANES, & TORNADOES are concerned, to be FATAL.
@@DanTheMan1985ful I don't think it's really supposed to be scary, but it sounds that way because the alerts are automated by computers to get the message out there as quickly and concisely as possible with minimal mistakes in speech that could slow the message or cause problems.
@@DanTheMan1985ful TAKE it EASY with the CAPS, tough boy...
🎥🎥
Those weather alerts scared me to death and especially when they were being read over the air by those robotic voices. I always thought I’d be the one to die in whatever area they described.
Another child with and overactive imagination, I see.
So, Bonzi Buddy has been working to be a announcer.
And it sounds like he’s gone through some puberty
10:41 I'm a survivor of these warnings. Rural Iowa 80s - early 90s. I would always rush to unplug my NES because I was worried it would get fried.
I actually saved an episode of an anime series I was following last year, in which a Japanese weather warning was scrolling across the bottom of the screen throughout most of the episode, much like the Columbo clip here. I found it interesting, even if the ticker was untranslated, as I wasn't sure if anyone outside the US did that sort of weather warning.
You got a link to it?
Which anime?
Fun fact: EAS alerts are usually limited to 2 minutes, which might be why it cuts off.
This two minute rule doesn't cover Emergency Action Notifications. (national alert) Not sure about National Periodic Tests, though.
2021 edit: FEMA and the FCC are considering options to do persistent alerts, meaning this cutoff may either be changed, or the alerts could be changed in another way.
Supid Wild Boar
Wha--?
FairPlay137 NPT's, too.
FairPlay137 Yeah why are there so many dumb and unneeded comments on these types of videos? They Always Talk With Caps For Some Reason.
@@clockwork1203 I always assume they're confused children either trying to google something or trying to write a comment but have no idea what to say (they might also just think "randem = funneh!!!")
That tape at the beginning feels like what someone would find after exploring a place long ago destroyed/abandoned
I actually live by a siren, as in it's in my back yard basically. They test it for 10 to 15 seconds every Friday.
Poor you! That must hurt your ears!
I used to live by one too! I lived in the Pacific Northwest, they would test and sound the alarm every month. I was about 7 or 8 around then.
I lived across the street from one.
I worked within five kilometres of the Pickering Nuclear power plant in Ontario, Canada, during university and they used to test their outdoor warning sirens whenever they got around to doing a test, often in the fall ideally once a year. Most of the residents in the area can't even tell the nuclear sirens from a fire truck siren. I hated the tests though since my work would hold a nuclear drill at the same time. Everyone out of the warehouse and into the cafeteria to line up and pretend to take potassium iodide to protect your thyroid, then back to work like nothing happened
Same, our was near a school. And add to that the fact that our high school football stadium had a smaller siren that they’d use whenever our team scored a touchdown, Friday nights in our neighborhood were quite noisy.
Probably my favorite episode of Archive. Glad I'm not the only one who gets nostalgic over this stuff
God almighty, was I ever frightened of the weather alert tone when I was younger...
Me too, right up there with my least favourite sounds of the fire alarm at school and smoke detectors. We used to pick up WNED's PBS station in Toronto on the bunny ears from across the lake and the test tones were frightening and confusing. We don't do that kind of shrieking alert here
Unsolved Mysteries (14:10) used to creep me out when I was a kid. I think it was the weird synthesizer intro music more than anything else.
🤖
It's like eaaaaaaaa eaaaaaaa eaaaaaaa beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.
Or simply, ear rape.
But I love EBS/EAS.
Έλληνας που βλέπει οντιτι αρκαιβ ομιτζι
It's supposed to take your ears
ThE nAtIoNaL wEaThEr SeRvIcE iN nOrThErN iNdIaNa HaS iSsUeD a SeVeRe ThUnDeRsToRm WaRnInG
For those who are curious, the “song” that played at 12:38 was called _”From a distance”_
That weird telephone noise and then the lady from the police department was by far the weirdest to me.
We used to have those when I was young in North Dakota, and it scared the shit out of me. It was always the fire chief and they would break in whenever there was a tornado close by or if a child was missing or possibly abducted. I just knew it was a dire emergency!
It would've scared the fuck out of me as a kid.
Until around 2002 or 2003, our cable (through time warner) would only show EAS alerts on channel 20. Any other channel told you to tune there "for further details."
Regarding that "god is watching us" part, I have a similar story. I think it was 1987 (I was 11), my mother was driving us home from Century III Mall on rt. 51 (just south of Pittsburgh), in a torrential downpour. My mom and I had been arguing about something just before, but was then just not talking for a few minutes. Then the car started spinning (hydroplaning), we smashed into the cement divider, and when it was over, we were still pointed in the right direction on the road, the car had shut off, and there were no cars, anywhere around us, but here's the thing: both of us recalled there being several other cars close to us just before the crash & they should have been part of the accident as well. My mom turned the car back on, and we resumed the ride home, uninjured but very shaken up. But the kicker is... there was an Amy Grant cassette in the tape deck, but not inserted (when inserted, it would play automatically). The force of the crash inserted the tape & when mom turned the car back on, it immediately started playing the tape, which was at the chorus of the song "Angels Watching Over Me". Certainly one of the strangest events of my life.
That "We Interrupt" announcement was recorded from the radio station WQDR and WPTF Raleigh, NC.
8:26 Xenia, Ohio F5 Tornado of April 3, 1974 from the WHIO-TV weather radar - That was one heck of a day.
14:05 I live in Denver and I have to say, Channel 4's old weather alert was quite a chill raiser, I remember with their old circle logo they had a graphic of what kind of storm it was going to be in the upper left and the bar with the scrolling text was red. Las Animas County is 200 miles from Denver actually, but it makes sense that they would broadcast the alert because Denver TV has since 1979 been available on satellite and most places in Colorado prefer to watch Denver channels, even in places where Colorado Springs stations would have priority.
I agree
I remember that too.
S'okay Ben, I enjoy weather warnings too. Nothing like turning the weather radio on and sitting on the back porch, watching a storm approach.
OMG... a weather warning over a Robert Stack-era "Unsolved Mysteries"... that's pants-shitting terror right there...
good ol ultra magnus.
ShockSound Production He can't deal with that now.
"I've never seen anything this beautiful in the entire galaxy. All right, give me the bomb"
I know this is a slim chance, but does anybody know which episode that was being shown?
3:49 gotta love that steve miller weather alert
During the April 3rd 1974 outbreak, just as WHIO Dayton did earlier, our local NBC affiliate, being the only local station with a radar at the time, also put it on the air as bad weather approached. All we got was hail and some wind damage. Poor Xenia Ohio got much, much worse.
We usually have weekly eas tests in New York., especially monthly tests.
The eas was simply a red bar on TWC... Here
RIP in peace Ben Ravioli
Ours up here in the Mitten State were red where I was. Imagine a whole screen suddenly turning red, with a little white image of what kind of storm it was gonna be in the middle, and white flashing letters reading "Tornado Warning" or whatever, with the EBS noise. Of course it always happened at night, and it always scared ten shades of shit out of me.
For me, it's a red line above the screen..with white letters strolling across the screen.
🧷
That EBS warning in the mock-up is from the North Carolina training tape isn't it?
Tony Wolf it was
Funny story just happened. We have some severe weather going through our area, one of the local news stations have their usual radar coverage when the EAS broke in for a Required Monthly Test!
Better yet, it doubles as a TD because the blue bar that the EAS text occupied is still on the screen after the EOM!
I died at the 18 minute mark. So flipping hilarious. Don't you fall on me!!!!
Do you known 18:00?
I don't think I commented the first time I watched this, but I have a distinct correlation of songs and warnings too - both of them happened in 1973 in Heath Ohio. Both times, it was Newark Ohio's WCLT-AM (the tower was right behind our house) broadcasting tornado warnings in-between songs, both times it was for our county but not right where we were, and thankfully they were moving away. But they would roll right into the next song on the playlist, and there's nothing more terrifying to a 10 year old kid as the tornado warning ended and the opening of "My Love" by Paul McCartney and Wings started...with its opening sounding very much like a tornado siren..::shudder: A similar memory forever marrs "You Are The Sunshine Of My Life" by Stevie Wonder, although at least it didn't have something that sounded like a siren at the beginning. If you ever find any TV or radio alerts from Central Ohio from the 1970s, give me a shout - I'm trying to find copies of the various Columbus TV stations' bulletin slides for a project i"m working on...great show, dude!
Nods to Louisville AND New Albany?! Woo! Though WNAS was just a teletext station to my recollection. Keep up the great work Ben. I love this series!
I remember last year, when for the first time of my life i traveled to the USA from Italy, for an holiday at friend's home.
In Wilkes-Barre, PA. While i was watching TV i see that damn red stripe of the EAS doing some kind of test.
Considering the river in that town is famous to reach high levels, i thought i was going to drown ahaha
was it Wednesday?
I think it was, yes. it was in august 2013 tho
Maurizio Malavolta they do tests of the EAS every Wednesday at noon.
thecooldude9999 During odd numbered months, yes. In even numbered months, it happens sometime in the wee hours of the morning.
Which station was it? We might have seen it depending on the station.
I seem to remember during the EBS era, when our cable system was interrupted with a Severe Thunderstorm or Tornado Warning, after the attention signal, we would hear audio from WJR 760. Makes since, considering they are the strongest AM station in Michigan, and they have one of the best weather departments in the state.
That would be because WJR was the primary EBS station for southeastern Michigan, the one that was the hub of the entire region.
Interesting trivia note: Except for a very few stations in the extreme northwestern Upper Peninsula that have permission to use Northern Michigan University's station instead, *every* broadcast station in Michigan is required to use a directional antenna to monitor WKAR-FM from Michigan State University 24/7, as it's the primary entry point for *state* EAS activations (as opposed to national or regional ones). Why WKAR? Because it's the Michigan State Police in charge of activating it, and their headquarters is literally across the street (Harrison Road) from Michigan State University. This is also why WKAR has a clear frequency at the maximum permitted FM wattage...
rdfox76 WKAR-FM has a powerful signal, that’s for sure. I can usually hear it from my Crosley radio in my room (in Livonia) almost clear!
KCAU is my local station here in Siouxland, a few points to that clip...
One the interrupt only occurred on the Jones Intercable (South Sioux City) cable system, and two the Jackson referred to is Jackson, Nebraska, a town to the west of South Sioux City.
CableOne, the Sioux City cable system, would go to a static computerized "turn to a local station slide" when a major storm would hit.
4:20 Dude! WTVW Evansville?! I live an hour away from there! (And we get the local stations from there.) Man it must be easy to get footage of a Tornado warning for that area. We get hit with Storms, Tornadoes and floods ALL the time! Shoutout from Western Kentucky!
That was literally a part of a song that I would think it would be part of the song!
I used to see minute-by-minute radar tracking of severe storms and tornadoes on one of the Minneapolis stations on cable (or was it Devils Lake-Grand Forks?) while living in Manitoba in the Nineties. It was interesting that they could tell you the very minute that one would pass over a tiny town.
Having spent much of my youth in Aurora, I fondly remember that big voice and siren echoing for miles whilst walking home from school in the afternoon. The first time I heard it, I about freaked out... By the way, I feel fortunate to have found you here in you-tube land and appreciate what you're doing.
Holy shit, Ben you live in Aurora, too? Cool beans.
wildsmiley So it IS Aurora. The way he says it makes it sound like "Awora."
Apparently it's a joke of his to pronounce it "awowa" instead of Aurora
Daimos Z Awooora
He not no more, he don't.
I keep my cameras (video/still) in cases that are hung on a hook. You never know when shit starts to go down especially in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I've been there where I was looking for my camera when the sirens were going off. It's worse than dying in a tornado. It's best to have your equipment readily accessible so you don't get caught with your pants down while a cow crashes through your living room....
Also that ending.....RIP
But same happens to me, big fucking scramble a-la Twister to get my equipment set-up, I'm never prepared either. HIT THE DITCH!
🐺
funny seeing weather alerts from my area. wfld is our local fox network
Turn around, don’t drown! That’s what the National Weather Service teaches their trainees, the weather spotters.
As an EAS Enthusiast myself,
Yeah, there pretty horrifying as hell for the masses.
Over the years though, I did get used to be into the Emergency Alert System then later, NOAA Weather Radio All Hazards.
The end, that is the end of my statement, no more questions.
The Weather Channel
Was 3:49's music taken from the original Fly Like an Eagle?
K9!
Feralmouth Affirmative!
👍👍👍 Correct. I love that song more because of that weather alert. 😂
I found that out too hahaha
Nope. That's not the Space Intro. I thought it was at first, though.
Speaking of Unsolved Mysteries, the "Update" music used to freak me out when I was a kid.
No, I used to be. I think I'm desensitized from it after watching so many videos about it.
For some reason at the intro when the voice said a tear or two I felt like I was about to cry
Remember when the movie "Duel" starring Dennis Weaver was first broadcast on ABC Network in about 1971? At the most exciting part of the movie, WREX Rockford, IL had a technical difficulty. Left a lot of viewers very irate.
6:43 They would have reported it at 4:20 but the weather spotters were busy.
+Bishop Coxcomb Yeah, smoking pot.
+Bishop Coxcomb they were blazing weed m8
5:00 YESSS! I was hoping you'd find those WHAS gems. The tornado warning graphic is just as rad.
I was in Denver in June 1993, when a monster tornado was rolling from the dia airport to wray. and I was listening to the Rockies game and then on 85 koa would broadcast tornado warnings all afternoon long, I was off 92nd and federal, and had a awesome view of it.
them days was neat, and with a police scanner I could hear it all!
Once there was an emergency alert while it was pouring outside. In the background of the voice I could hear the sound of rain slamming onto a metal roof. The mic was so shitty you could hear the rain louder than the voice. I'd hate to be the guy on the mic, it was four o'clock in the morning. I'm certain it was a live mic and not a pre-recorded message.
My local ABC station does weather crawls (when not in rolling coverage mode), complete with like four seconds of the EBS-EAS beep overlaid on the audio to announce its presence.
Another funny thing about the EAS: During the 2021 national test, certain EAS systems crashed to a Linux command line mid-alert, saying something about it running out of memory.
Firefox moment
4:37 looks like the cover of a rock album. XD
Yes!
u like hetalia i see
im still stuck in the fandom
help
Harlow Embick What is hetalia
+gumballguy34 a show with personified countries
((been in the fandom for 4 years now, and i dont think i will ever leave help))
Harlow Embick That sounds interesting...
WFLD was using a part of a song called "Fly Like An Eagle" from The Steve Miller Band in that weather warning from 1978. I think that they found out just how bad of an idea that it was to use that song for the warning tones when it came to tornado warnings.
NOAA Weather Radio FTW.
I've been watching your videos for a couple of months now and I love how you present these often known but little understood topics of pop culture. It's very unique and not like anything else out there.You deserve even more viewership than you have now for sure.
Keep up the great work.
After living in the Dixie Vally for only just a few years? I got my fill of NOAA EAS activations. Normally? It went pretty smoothly, and when combined with an actual warning, the sirens would be spinning just at the same time the warnings started coming through. Felt like they got it down to a science. The crazy part today is, consumer radar apps are getting so good that you can almost spot the next tornado warnings before/as the NOAA does.
I got the feeling though that most people that were from there, didn't pay as much attention to weather alerts as say somebody from out of state would.... Or maybe just those of us who finds stuff like this interesting...
Still better than having the police department hijacking my Wonder Years. Can't have that.
So you're one of those people that bitch about your show being interrupted. People like you suck. Saving lives is more important than your show
By far the creepiest alert sirens I have heard were the ones installed at the University of Massachusetts after the Virginia Tech massacre. Ostensibly they were to protect the students from a mass shooting and have been used when they thought a shooyer was on campus,but they are more used for weather alerts. Creepy as hell.
Hmmm, that clip from WMAQ is odd. They broadcast from Chicago, but all the counties mentioned (Sangamon, DeWitt, Macon, etc) are in Central Illinois...far beyond the reach of WMAQ's signal. Perhaps they were being carried on cable in some markets. I was raised in Macon County, but wasn't born until 1977. I don't remember WMAQ having any presence in the area, though.
The old fashioned crawl from that Columbo clip is still the weather alert I see the most even today.
I'm 27 and I remember watching the wx channel in the mid 90s and patiently waited for local on the 8s and watched weather star 4000 do it's thing. I'd always go so excited every time I'd hear of a tornado watch. I'm very nostalgic in the same sense. It's some of my most fond childhood memories. I remember I had a 49mhz walkie talky that I put a piece of tape around the PTT button and put it outside and sat down in my basement listening for a tornado to come on the other ht lol. Im so glad I found your channel, it really brought back allot of memories. W9CLR
Television
I lived in Denver when that recording EAS is from and hearing my county in that voice spooked the shit out of me
@8:01; I recall that being on our cable TV until The Weather Channel was picked up by them.
The wait for the bulletin with the EAS has been reduced once they switched the text to speech voice from Tom to Paul
in my area in north Texas, the primary EAS station is 820 AM WBAP, and Secondary EAS is 96.3 FM KSCS. and most radio and TV stations play the alerts for bad weather after they air love on WBAP is relayed back to KSCS and all the other station's EAS equipment.
Former Denver area resident (Broomfield) here- I remember the old KCNC news/weather alert thing. Always scared the bejesus out of me.
It annoyed me back then how the stations would pick and choose what alerts they would broadcast. They could have set it automatically which some in other areas did, but here they broadcasted them manually. At night, forget it, that warning wasn't getting relayed by the overnight mater control guy.
Fine, here we go....June 1977 Hobart, Indiana. My mother, grandmother, sister and me were shopping at the Shultz Bros. (now the Dollar General). The skies grew unusually dark. Then the wind started whipping up, the doors got sucked open, and the windows shook violently like I thought they would shatter into a thousand pieces! An employee took us down into their basement. Do your research. The tornado did some real damage to Hobart, Indiana June 29(?) 1977.
I remember KATV out of Little Rock, AR used to have an alert tone that would scare the shit out of me. Made me think the tornado was right next door to me...
I know. 😂 I still get nervous whenever I hear a siren outside the usual 12 noon Wednesday timeslot.
All these Denver examples are great and just as I remember them!
Lone star state
Very entertaining and informative Ben! Especially learning about your personal experiences with these matters-being right in tornado alley basically. And in particular it was great to learn about those local access warnings. I was wondering what that unnerving,possibly seizure inducing noise on your 'EBS Tribute' Archive video was called. I live in Maine-home of the 'Nor Easter and never had to hear one of them because non of our weather is totally localized in the manner of a tornado. Again fantastic Archive episode!
You like oddities, though you may not have been directly in the line of fire if the 2011 Super Outbreak, I was. I’ve lived in Alabama most of my life (with brief stints in Wisconsin and Texas… military family).. and everything about that day was odd. From the early morning surprise storms that took half the state’s weather radio towers and sirens out (along with my roof and the power.. meaning hundreds of thousands of us never saw the BIG ONES coming.. 8 EF-4’s and 3 EF-5’s just in Alabama alone.. 252 people died)..
I had the misfortune of moving us from our home that was damaged by an early morning EF-2 to a friend’s house where we were later hit by an EF-4. (The same one that famously hit Tuscaloosa and Birmingham).
My friend lost his wife, father, and daughter (7 years old) in these later storms.
It was absolutely wild and though we had no power the local meteorologists (including the famous James Spann) had been warning us for days it was coming. But then this line came through before daybreak and the sun came out! So naturally, with no power and a beautiful blue sky day after many people thought “blown forecast, we’re good, 5 fatalities and a few torn up neighborhoods… nothing we can’t handle in the south.” I remember getting gas for our generator to keep the deep freezer cold and actually making a food donation to a local church that had advertised they were taking displaced families.
I went home. My husband went to work (night shift at Honda who despite hearing the weathermen saying “this isn’t what you think, the sun is making this worse, people will die, nobody should be out FORCED their workers in anyway.. though it’s why my friend lived being as he worked at the plant too he was also not there while his whole family was destroyed which he still battles with). I had my radio on listening to James Spann and Jason Simpson (hero meteorologists in my heart, always) when they said a huge wedge was on camera and headed for the campus of Tuscaloosa. “All you can do is pray for those people” is a phrase I had never heard out of the mouth of the most calm, cool and collected meteorologist I had ever seen. He says in a book “I think people did pray when I said that.. it just slipped right out”. And he is right, I did. It is the only time in my life I have gotten down on my knees to pray (I say campus of Tuscaloosa instead of city as it is home to the University of Alabama, the largest university in the state and most widely known for their football program). I took the hands of my 4 and nearly 2 year old and got on my knees and prayed.. these are 18-25 year olds. They’re away from home. Some don’t even know what tornadoes are.. much less how to survive one. People who did everything right didn’t survive that one.
But then my phone started going crazy “Are you watching this?!” In the chaos of my day.. trying to tarp up the damage and deal with the power company and take care of two babies I hadn’t told anyone our house had already taken damage and I couldn’t see anything.
They just kept saying on the radio it was large and moving into Birmingham where my parents live. My mother called in tears “there are 8 different types of insulation falling in the yard.. they just named us, and you’re in line next. If I don’t hear from you again know I love you and the kids so much… get out of that house NOW and somewhere underground.” Before I could argue a friend a few miles further east called crying and said “Do you see this?! Where is your husband?! You can’t survive this above ground, you have to come here NOW!”
I didn’t question her. I went. The tornado briefly lifted.. after tearing apart half the town I grew up in but sparing my parents. I made it to my friend’s house in time to see it come back down… right on top of the tiny town we had taken refuge in. The roar came first.. then hearing things hit the house. Then the power went out.. we got in the most underground part of her basement underneath a bed. We told the kids it was a game. Our ears popped. But while it took half her neighborhood, her house stood.
But there was nothing recognizable outside. My husband was safer in the Honda plant which did have a huge underground shelter. Cell service was gone then.. so I couldn’t check on him. It took hours to finally make it back to our house, which the EF-4 had conveniently skipped over before bearing down on us.
So it’s a long story. And even knowing we had been hit and would have to have a new roof and wait for them to restore power (almost 2 weeks) we took donations of anything we could find to put a life back together. Kids clothes and baby supplies, making 100 boxes of small toys and activities for children we placed in pencil boxes.. crayons and toy cars and yo-up’s and little flashlights.. activity books that would fit… I don’t even know where we came up with that idea but they went FAST. Kids needed a distraction. I even remember taking a crib and mattress and diapers and formula that had never been opened and we had no need for…
We were on the ground days before FEMA arrived. We volunteered in Pleasant Grove which had been hit hard, helping families get necessities (my job was going through clothing donations.. making two piles “really good clothes” and “these could be play or work clothes” and then having a “this was a sweet thought but nobody can use this” garbage bin. If you wouldn’t wear it even to cut your grass it’s not a donation, you’re just using us as a dump site. Though I try to imagine it was someone giving the best they had.. we’re a poor state.)
But everything about that day and the aftermath was odd. Watching born in the blood republicans hugging Michelle Obama… because none of that mattered. We got to meet the PRESIDENT because he cared enough to come see what we had been through.
And while that sounds terrible.. less than a month later Joplin happened. And actually April 15 we had what we thought would be the new record day of over 40 tornadoes. This day we had 62. At one point they had counted 16 down at once. It’s like every “end of the world” weather movie you’ve ever seen.
I have personal photographs and the entire wall to wall coverage which I am SO grateful for is on UA-cam if you want to see once it started just how fast it went haywire. (I’m glad because it meant I got to see it at all. Having had no power since before the sun came up, I didn’t see the monsters as they came.. only the aftermath. I stumbled on Jason and James’ combined 13ish hours of coverage years later. I can’t believe we survived that. And I also can’t believe so many didn’t. Over 250 fatalities in less than a day from the weather.
It’s been almost 11 years and still we get very edgy when tornadoes are forecast. And we still get them regularly but nothing like that. The last day like that was 4/3/74. They call them generational outbreaks but I imagine I’ll be alive for the next one, but probably a grandmother several times over by then.
I know this was long and more information than you likely needed… but if ever there was an oddity in the weather here outside of having a Blizzard in 1993 in the middle of March (in Alabama we rarely see snow) then this is it. You seem to like weather, so I just was throwing this out there for you.
(I had turned 10 just 4 days before the blizzard so I remember it as well).
For what it’s worth, you can hear one of my own (if less severe) stories in volume 2.
imagine being a kid sick at home and watching scooby doo only for a test of the ebs to pop in.
*EAS comes on while watching Monday Night Raw* *pretends to do a wrestling move, fails hard and breaks several bones*
8:25 I was indicated by that Strong Echo!
I'm the same way!! I love watching the weather coverage; for you, it would be in the Denver area, for me it's the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex in Texas
I'm from Macon County in Illinois. That was neat to see.
Summer of '98? I lived through a five day power outage and saw the house three down from my grandmother get flattened by a tree.
Just a question: was it intentional to have this video end like "The Blair Witch Project"?? hehe
There's no place like home, there's no place like home.....
Have you ever made an episode about shortwave radio?
He made one about numbers stations :-)
Thanks.
fatcat2939 His newest video is about Shortwave in general
I mean, the previous episode was about shortwave oddities
@@DoctorLemon 🍋
Around here when I was a kid they did the crawl and a W at the top-left of the screen (or was it top-right?)
ChrisKewl If the logo was yellow or red and was a circle with a stylized 'Wx' in it and it was in the upper left-hand corner with the weather crawl at the bottom then the local station where I grew up in the 80s (KLTV) did the exact same thing.
When I was a kid, top left or top right depended on the station. It was a red W for a tornado warning, and a yellow W for anything else...
I think The National Weather Service started broadcasting weather alerts in the 1950's with invention of the weather radio
move to Fort Worth we get the full alert... but it gets broadcasted in areas that are not needed to. UP TO 5-8 TIMES
15:55 that was me also. I have a tape of Austin MN's system going off.
The footage you captured was on the day after my birthday
Hey Ben I just want you to know that your my hero you amaze me
The song from your memory is from a distance by Bette milder I think
You must find WNBC's weather warning slide from I want to say the early 90s? Just the News 4 New York logo against a cloudy sky with the moon peeking behind one cloud. Pretty creepy...
Oh Lord, the first one you show is from East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana, where I grew up. I remember that screen and that voice. I remember it was VERY real for me on June 8, 1989.
Ayyyy.....
14:05 KCNC weather bulletin. I'm guessing the sound used dates back to the 80s, given the synths used.
Those robot voices creep the hell out me me.
Same as I my friend same as I (CREEEEEPYYYYY-pasta)
What was that program on KCNC during the weather crawl?
+Rusty Ralston I believe that was Unsolved Mysteries that went from NBC to CBS through 2003.
5:49
I was there, Sep. 11-14, 2013. In CO.
Those damn EASes were SO annoying.
A long time ago (2009, I believe) I remember getting interrupted by tornado warnings. It was just annoying to me since I couldn't watch (don't ask how I remember this) the Little Einsteins.
Also, this was in Denver, Colorado as well.
I was watching this on my tv and it got interrupted by an EAS for a tornado watch lol
CONELRAD/Emergency Broadcast System/Emergency Alert System
3:42 Whoever typed that message spelled "Tornados" incorrectly. It's Tornadoes for weather, Tornados for those gas station snacks that tear you up.
One of them spins around and causes damage while the other one tastes good and causes internal dysfunction. Both are amazing LOL
That's funny, internal dysfunction.
Sucks to be you with a weak ass stomach haha
Sounds like WFLD's weather alert wants to Fly like an Eagle