That was it?

All through the day yesterday, the meteorologists and talking heads on the local news channels were predicting Armageddon for Central Iowa. You would have thought that the greatest natural disaster since, well, ever was poised to drop death and destruction on our fair state. Reporters were stationed all over the state to breathlessly report on how absolutely nothing was happening where they were, but boy HOWDY was it going to be bad! The weather guys and gals were looking appropriately disheveled as if to show us how they were workin' that Super Duper Whopper Doppler for all its worth to keep us informed of how much snow, sleet, and freezing rain wasn't falling. I went to bed last night confident in the knowledge that when I awoke the next day, three of the four horseman of the Apocalypse would be thundering down our street. Imagine my surprise when I woke up, looked outside, and the world had not transformed into a wasteland. My first thought was "That's it? This is all we got?" I am sure that the Ed Wilsons and Brian Karricks of the world are just as perturbed as I am but for vastly different reasons. There would be no screaming headlines of "POWER OUTAGES STATEWIDE" or "INTERSTATES CLOSED" that they could report on. There would be no human interest stories of how people were dealing with another crippling blow dealt to the fine folks of Iowa by Mother Nature. No, this morning there were no massive pileups that brought the morning commute to a stop. There were no poor unfortunates huddled in shelters because their power was out. It was pretty much just a morning in Iowa in winter. It's cold, the streets are a little slick, and that's about it. I just have one request for the weather professionals in the state: If it's going to storm, just let us know its going to storm. No need to scare the bejeezus out of us by telling us that the world is coming to an end and you heard it first from StormTeam8. Then school administrators won't be cancelling school and letting the kids go home early when there isn't a cloud in the sky. Then people won't be jamming the aisles of Hy-Vee stocking up on beef broth and aluminum foil and toilet paper because God knows when we'll be able to get to the grocery store again. Just tell us that we have a storm coming our way, because we know how to deal with it. We're Iowans. We're used to it. This is not something new to us. If the four horseman did come thundering down our streets, we'll just politely wait til they pass, and get on with our business. It's what we do.