Quake Overload

Coverage overkill? Uh, yuh think? Our local TV newscasters have never been known for their restraint -- this is the land of STORMWATCH and car chases, after all.

But it's still a sorry sight to see our local stations struggling to make Tuesday's 5.4 quake into a bigger story. Some of it was pure fear mongering -- "Is this the precursor to something bigger?" was the first question out of everyone's mouth. The truth is, the odds of the big one hitting tomorrow aren't much better or worse than they were yesterday. When the big one's ready to hit, it's gonna hit.

Broken pipes, shampoo bottles on supermarket floors, some bricks from unreinforced buildings sliding to the ground -- interesting visuals and worth mentioning. But worth blowing out the afternoon with wall to wall coverage?

I suppose you could argue that at least this was good practice for when a big quake really does hit. But I was almost embarrassed for Southern California by the end of the day -- given the truly destructive quakes and natural disasters around the globe in recent years, our minor shake was a minor distraction.



Of course, there wasn't video from those other quakes of Judge Judy -- looking alarmed, probably wondering if that light above her was going to come crashing down.