Yellowhammer News CEO Cliff Sims sat down with legendary meteorologist James Spann in the ABC 33/40 studio recently to record an episode of The Exchange, Yellowhammer’s weekly interview with an Alabama politician, business leader or otherwise notable Alabamian.
The interview is being rolled out in pieces throughout this week.
Part 1: James Spann: ‘Alabama is my family, we’ve been through a lot together’
Part 2: Spann on global warming alarmists: ‘This stuff is so outrageous’
In Part 3 of The Exchange with James Spann, Sims noted that many people in the South have grown up around severe weather to the point that they are “nonchalant” about it. That, Sims said, makes Spann’s job more difficult because he has to convince his viewers to take proper precautions during inclement weather.
“I think in a very real way that lives are in your hands,” Sims said. “Do you ever feel the weight of that?”
“During the event, no. We’re so busy there’s not time to think, there’s no time to get emotional,” Spann replied. “You think about it the next day, and you think about it the next month and you think about the next year, but you don’t think about it that minute.”
Spann specifically recalled the historic Alabama tornado outbreak of April 27, 2011 as an event that still weighs on him.
“That day was surreal. I felt like to some degree I didn’t do an adequate job because the death toll was so high. We knew about every single tornado that day and 252 people died, which is insane,” Spann said. “I thought the death toll should have been about 30. In 30 cases there was nothing you could do, it was your day. But for 222 of those people there was a safe place within walking distance and they had plenty of time to get there… After that I went through all the phases of grief and anger and was down for a while. Now I want to roll up my sleeves and get this thing fixed.”
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