“Good weather for microphone shovin’,” I thought to myself as I woke up Thursday morning.

When that batch of thunderstorms moved in Wednesday night, I had just left dinner in the Mid-Cities. When I first moved to DFW, I was the afternoon anchor at WBAP. When we had a tornado warning, I’d go back and forth with our meteorologist, Brad Barton, repeating some of the same themes in each outbreak [because people never change their behavior no matter how often something bad happens, are you with me society?!].

A popular one was, “Brad, a lot of the people listening to the radio are in the car. Talk about why it’s not safe to park under an overpass during a tornado warning.”

And he’d explain, either drawing it out because we didn’t have anything else to talk about at that moment or rushing through it because the radar had just updated and he wanted to tell people which neighborhood was about to get a good whackin‘ [It’s possible he did not use the term, “whackin’].

I bring that up because I started hearing the sirens go off Wednesday night, and I flipped on KRLD. Our meteorologist there, Dan Brounoff, was explaining that the storm was whackin’ [It’s possible he didn’t use the term, “whackin”, either. But I bet Jim Cantore might.] Lake Worth and Saginaw, so if you’re in the Mid-Cities, it was about to head your way.

“Hmm,” I thought to myself as I drove down Highway 114. “My record with cars in natural disasters isn’t ideal.”

With hail big enough to cause people to post pictures online of hail stones next to rulers and other objects, I suspected maybe this wasn’t an ideal time to drive home. But I wasn’t going to stop under an overpass.

Instead, I pulled off the highway and into a National Weather Service-approved gas station.

Pro-tip for meteorologists: Encourage people to stop at gas stations. If people are saying it is their right to stop under an overpass and they know better than you how to respond to a tornado because they read a website that one time, include that if you stop at a gas station, you can park under the awning, head inside for cover and, afterward, maybe get a soda and a candy bar.

“That storm was outrageous,” you might say. “Almost as outrageous as this Outrageous bar. Reese’s is nothing if not an innovative company, always finding new ways to add sugar to their candy.”

My truck was fine, and that Outrageous bar helped soothe my jangled nerves on the road. But when I woke up Thursday morning, I saw how much damage had been caused and headed to the neighborhood in Azle that was hit.

Loyal Scaiaholics will recall I’ve started to work “microphone shovin” into my introduction to people whose faces I am shovin’ my microphone into.

That woman talked about trying to find a safe place to hide with her kids.

Everyone in her house was okay, but three people got hurt in a house down the street.

I also enjoy telling people my first experience with a tornado. I grew up in Ohio and went to college in Indiana… so naturally, the first time I saw a tornado in real life was Portland, Oregon.

I mentioned that to two gentlemen in that same neighborhood. If you listen to this, you should know ahead of time I had gently edit some of this interview before it aired because he uses language that, while completely understandable, is not appropriate for the radio.

I’m sorry to say I stopped recording right when I started giving the microphone shovin’ speech, but explaining to people how even members of the media don’t like the media sensationalizing things is a phenomenal conversation starter.

Nevertheless, I think they both sum up the way a lot of people feel about a severe weather outbreak in Texas:

“Oh [expletive].”

and

“This is not the first time. It will not be the last”

Maybe the National Weather Service could work candy bars into their updated terminology for watches and warnings.

Instead of issuing a “Particularly Dangerous Situation” tornado watch, maybe say, “You might want to consider hoarding your favor candy now to prepare.”