For county residents, Dr. Don a light in the storm
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Randolph County was fortunate to avoid any major impact from the statewide invasion of severe weather Saturday night. The power of the storms was seen elsewhere, however, as images emerged in the Sunday morning daylight of the destructive power of a tornado outbreak that produced as many as 16 twisters in the state.
One of those did come perilously close to Randolph County. A storm that spawned a tornado near Lake Martin had the town of Wadley in its sites shortly after midnight. Thankfully that tornado lifted at or near the county line, sparing Randolph County from a nearly identical storm track as the one that cut through the south end of the county in 2021.
I know this because, like so many other folks in the county Saturday night, I was glued to Don Strength’s live broadcast coverage of the storms and his real-time warnings as the storms developed. Dr. Don was live on his Dr. Don’s Weather Page on Facebook and simultaneously on his YouTube feed as well. I pulled up the YouTube broadcast on the TV in my living room and watched non-stop for basically five hours (the handful of power flickerings notwithstanding). It’s clear I was not alone.
As of Monday morning there had been over 180,000 views of Don’s Saturday night Facebook coverage and another 14,000 views on YouTube.
Hearing Don is like listening to your favorite neighbor with the trick knee telling you with surprising accuracy about what the weather is going to do. Only instead of a trick knee, Don has state of the art weather equipment, an in-home studio and years of expertise analyzing images that look like pure gobbledygook to anyone else.
I have learned to implicitly trust Don when he hovers his cursor over an area and says, “Your rotation is right here,” even though to me that area looks exactly the same as at least nine other spots on the screen.
A couple of other things I learned Saturday night: There are a handful of ways to get Don Strength rankled. The easiest is to drop into the comments as soon as you start watching and become a “What about.” I got a chuckle as Don’s voice got a little more annoyed each time he said “Here come the ‘What abouts,’” and then broke into his spiel for the umpteenth time about how if he’s not talking about your town there’s nothing in your town to talk about. To his credit he made it through that speech at least a half dozen times without losing his cool, despite his obvious (and hilarious) irritation.
But, for me, his greatest and most entertaining rant of the night came after a report of an unnamed person who got trapped in their car while driving in the path of a tornado (and was thankfully okay). Don WENT OFF on how foolish driving in or near a tornado is, and made it crystal clear that doing so is the worst thing you can do. He had no mercy for the lack of weather awareness that leads a person to do that, scolding us all like we were school children in an effort to drive the point home.
He also does not suffer fools when it’s time to get serious. As the aforementioned tornado passed through an area called Jackson’s Gap, a commenter had the temerity to ask about specific roads in Jackson’s Gap. Don said what we were all thinking:
“It doesn’t matter what road. Jackson’s Gap isn’t that big. This thing is probably bigger than Jackson’s Gap. Just get to your safe place now!”
You’ll notice that in the above examples Don saved his patience for the inanely redundant (the “What abouts”) and held his passionate urgency until it was needed – in potentially life-threatening circumstances. This tells you all you need to know about Don Strength, the value of the service he provides and the manner in which he provides it.
A man does not broadcast live from his home (and ignore his newly hatched chicks) for over five hours in the middle of the night just because he likes the sound of his own voice. He does it because he knows people need him.
Don was the EMA director in Randolph County once upon a time and spent a long time living here. He still has family in the area. I think that’s what makes watching him in the chaos of a tornado outbreak so soothing. He’s not just some broadcaster at a faraway TV station. He’s one of us. You could hear the obvious relief in his voice when the tornado warning for Randolph County was lifted just as the storm approached Wadley. He literally sighed and said, “Phew,” after he made the announcement, embodying how we all felt in that moment.
If you’re not watching Don during severe weather in East Central Alabama, you are doing yourself a disservice. Without a local TV station that closely covers our area, Don is a literal life-saver when nights like Saturday take place. I speak for countless individuals and families in this area when I say that I am truly and eternally grateful for he what he does.
And I have come to learn there are no greater words spoken on a stormy night than when Don Strength tells your town, “Good night. You can go to bed.”
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