People who report the news have to speak about tragedies almost every day, it must wear on their emotions. But they work hard to maintain professionalism so that they can inform the public of what is happening.
But these men and women are human…and we just were able to see a very human moment from WTVA meteorologist Matt Laubhan.
He was on the air live looking at a radar scan of a deadly tornado as it moved toward the small town of Amory, Mississippi. And he understood better than most what was actually taking place on the ground. Laubhan did his best for the community and the news to the people watching the live broadcast.
“This is a strong, life-threatening tornado that’s going to move either extremely close to Amory or in through the northern part of the city of Amory.”
He added, “Y’all trust me too much,” and then he explained that people sometimes take his predictions of where the tornado will go as hard fact, but the reality is that tornados can change directions on a dime. “So Amory, we need to be in our tornado safe place,” he said.
Then a new scan came on his screen and it impacted the meteorologist.
“North side of Amory, this is coming in,” he said. And then the reality of how strong the tornado was hit. “Oh, man,” he said, leaning down on the table with his hand over his mouth. That’s when he stood and prayed right on the live show, “Dear Jesus, please help them. Amen.”
In a moment he continued to talk about where the tornado was tracking.
“I can’t say that I was intending on praying,” he said. “It was kind of a situation where we knew that something extremely bad was happening, and we knew that it was possible, maybe even probable, that people were being hurt and about to die. I’m very rarely at a loss for words, and I was feeling a little bit overwhelmed, honestly. And it just kind of came out.”
He also said that many people who were watching live have told him his spontaneous prayer helped them to “realize the seriousness of the situation.”
One person wrote on Twitter that he “should have been focused 100% on his weatherman job at that point.”
But another said, ”I’m not a believer. He’s just having a human reaction,” wrote one person. “There’s nothing else he could’ve done in that moment. Let him cope how he can. From the short clip it seems he takes his job incredibly seriously. The two seconds it took to say that are inconsequential.”
And another, “I’m not religious and have no problem with this man’s reaction. He is an empathetic human and we should be supportive of these authentic responses.”
Watch:
