Hangin' with Mr. Cooper...

My new hurricane hero: Rob Marciano, hunky CNN reporter who's also a meteorologist. (He's much hunkier in the field.... but I digress.)
Why?
Because he actually had the good sense to pack it in and go indoors when the shit really started to hit the fan in Texas last night. He heard the in-studio weather dude give the latest stats about wind speed, etc, and said, on the air, "That's it. My crew and I are packing it in and getting to safety."
Yaaaaay, Rob!

The really weird thing is that he was just a few feet away from my other hurricane hero, Anderson Cooper. They were apparently in the same Beaumont, Texas parking lot, with two different crews, and on two different screen shots, for at least some of the evening. I realized this when something blew by Rob, and he turned to his right and asked "What was that?" And Anderson turned to his left to respond.
Umm...yeah. Two reporters. Standing out in the middle of a massive hurricane. In the same spot.
Anderson stayed, of course, and I actually feared for his life this time. He looked like he was about to be carried away by those unbelievable winds more than once last night. I don't know how long he stayed out, because I fell asleep and he was off the air when I woke up.

Other highlights: one reporter who was in Louisiana, I think, said "It's too dangerous to be outside right now." While he was standing outside.
And another reporter got whacked straight on by a large piece of debris during his live shot... kept talking, and than had to suppress a laugh when he explained what it was that had hit him.

As amusing as all of this is to me (the coverage, not the disaster), I am reminded of one of the very first tenets of journalism: the reporter is not supposed to become the story. And I don't think this kind of coverage helps anyone who is dying for information about the fate of their home.

That aside, you can see how exciting my Friday night was...