WGCL meteorologist Ella Dorsey was dodging death threats after she cut into the Masters for a tornado warning that impacted the Atlanta area.
“To everyone sending me death threats right now: you wouldn’t be saying a damn thing if a tornado was ravaging your home this afternoon. Lives are more important than 5 minutes of golf. I will continue to repeat that if and when we cut into programming to keep people safe,” she said on Twitter.
To everyone sending me death threats right now: you wouldn’t be saying a damn thing if a tornado was ravaging your home this afternoon. Lives are more important than 5 minutes of golf. I will continue to repeat that if and when we cut into programming to keep people safe.
Advertisement— Ella Dorsey (@Ella__Dorsey) April 14, 2019
A string of storms came through the area Sunday, forcing Dorsey to do a number of cut-ins. She says the station produced them with a split box so viewers could still see golf all while getting the most up-to-date weather information.
WUSA in Washington, D.C., also had to cut in for severe weather. While meteorologist Topper Shutt didn’t receive death threats, he said viewers were upset.
“I will say this, had the Masters been live, we would have likely addressed it with a crawl across the screen. But it wasn’t live and happening in our viewing area, we went live and the policy is to stay live until the warning expires or is cancelled,” Shutt said.
Shutt said the tornado warning was cancelled two minutes after it expired in an explanation to viewers on Twitter.
Why we interrupted The Masters for the tornado warning. #TornadoWarning #Tiger #WUSA9Weather @wusa9 @MelissaNordWx @MiriWeather @hbwx @RealMikeWilbon pic.twitter.com/NDuN1w2mhk
— Topper Shutt (@TenaciousTopper) April 14, 2019