It's not often you get a severe thunderstorm advisory and a possible tornado warning late on a weekend in November, but it happened on Sunday night. But only 680 News Radio was live and could report on it. This is, of course, one of the problems with leaving radio stations like CFRB and CKTB on autopilot. 

While Environment Canada did put out one of their Emergency Alerts, it's not quite the same as having an actual live body on air keeping an eye on what's happening. Even if most people would not be up listening, if something were to happen and the power went out or a twister hit, all those turning on their radios for emergency info would hear is a reroll. 

I admit it's rare this kind of thing happens. But in the good old days of radio, they would have had someone in the newsroom who could issue local updates live. Those days, like the winds gusting to 90k, have long been blown away. 

Luckily, the tornado warning was cancelled just after midnight. 

I'm not naive enough to ever believe stations in the present environment would be staffed 24/7, but I was wondering what would have happened in, say, St. Catharines if there was a sudden emergency (like a destructive tornado) late on a Sunday night. With the place on autopilot, it wouldn't exactly be able to serve its community in any real way if there's nobody there.
 

It did, but that wouldn't be enough to provide vital ongoing information if something catastrophic actually happened.