It may be just me but man, did the big talkers in the GTHA totally miss the boat on Monday on their 7 PM shows. In the midst of the worst snowstorm of the winter, and with people delayed by hours on the road due to the abysmal weather, you might have thought that would be the main topic of conversation, at least for a while.
 
Nope.
 
Instead, Alex Pierson led off with her regular commentary then threw to the sponsored Employment Hour on 640. That might be excused – it is a paid for hour of airtime and it would be hard to cancel it. (To be fair, she had meteorologist Ross Hull on after the paid shilling ended.)
 
And then I tuned to CFRB, where Barb DiGiulio was, for some reason, talking about some kind of cockamamie delivery service that would seem to have no real relevance considering the conditions outside.
 
Meanwhile, CHML in Hamilton was no better, endlessly pontificating about, well, to be honest, I couldn’t tell what.
 
And CKTB was doing its regular “Dog Talk,” although I wouldn’t send a dog out on a night like this. At least they talked briefly about how to take care of your pet in these conditions.

None of them did anything special after 8 PM, either, with RB having a filmmaker talking about "laughter yoga," which is just what I want to hear if I'm out driving in that mess.  
 
If I was stuck in my car in a frustrating and endless traffic jam and was three hours late getting home because of a near blizzard, I might do at least the first hour of my show getting people to call in about what the road conditions are like where they are, how long they’ve been stuck, whether they saw any accidents, how late they are, whether the plows have been out in their area or even how much snow is in their driveways for those lucky enough to have made it home safely. Or even who they were waiting for, if they were home hoping their loved one returns soon.

Not to mention all the cancellations these kinds of events bring.
 
But this didn’t seem to occur to any of these stations, which basically ignored the weather and went on and on about, well, nothing. Hey, I get it. This is Canada, We get terrible weather here in January. But we don’t often get a storm that combines high winds, huge snowfalls, bitter wind chills and white-outs right in the middle of the afternoon rush hour.
 
A long time ago, I remember a similar near-blizzard, this one in the morning. I was desperately trying to get my driveway clear enough to get my car out and try to get to my TV station’s newsroom. I was listening through headphones and a pocket radio to Larry Solway, of all people, on what was then called Talk 640. (As mentioned, it was a long time ago.)
 
As I shoveled my way into a near heart attack and the weather kept getting worse, Solway took calls from those coping with the storm and how the roads were in their area. It was nothing in depth and it would never have won any awards. But it was exactly what I needed to hear at that moment. And I remember it to this day.
 
I suspect those poor suckers traveling home Monday night in the worst Mother Nature could manage needed it, too. What they got instead was every talk radio station in the GTA letting them down. They all should have known better and done better. They didn't. And I'm betting those trapped in their cars noticed it, too.