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Monday, December 20, 2010

Nash Roberts...

I wake up this morning with an idea of a blog.
I turn on the TV, sit with the cup of coffee I won't drink,
and there on the Channel 4 news I hear:
NASH ROBERTS HAS DIED AT 92
and a different blog is created.
Another one of my childhood legends has died.
If you were a child of the 60's before
computers who told you where might a hurricane go,
you had Nash Roberts.
He was a forecaster who did not care where all the other
meteorologist said a storm would go.
He would get on that Gulf of Mexico map
with his marker and tell you where the hurricane was going.
His views were so different from others but down on the bayou
where I lived, no one evacuated until Nash said so.
I know Freddie Collins didn't.
We didn't talk of going to Donaldsonville until
Nash said to leave.
If I am not mistaken he was the only forecaster who
predicted Betsy right.
As channel 4 showed old clipping of him predicting
the weather, I was amazed at just how far we have
come in technology in my lifetime.
He really just had a bulletin board with a picture of
the Gulf and the coastal lands and a marker.
His drawing of a hurricane is what we all came to
know as a danger sign.
There was no weather channel or computers to
tell us differently than what Nash told us.
There was an outside antenna that caught
channels 4,6, and 8. When channels went off the air at midnight.
We in the Collins home, during hurricanes watched 4 only.
Nash, being the age of my own daddy gave us the
comfort of a parent when discussing a storm.
He was a father figure to me.
As I grew up Nash had retired but was brought back
to channel 4 for every storm.
I knew it was a storm we must watch and take serious
if Nash was called in from retirement.
I also hear this morning what a wonderful man he was
without the big black marker we came to know him by.
His channel 4 peers share this morning of
what he was to all of them.
The other New Orleans icon, Garland Robinette
shares that he was rich, famous and yet he lived
like he never knew it, a down to earth gentleman.
Rest in Peace, Nash
you will always be remembered with every storm
that enters the Gulf of Mexico.

5 comments:

  1. We had a pair of binoculars at the camp that was given to my grandfather by Nash Roberts. Think about it back then, he had no satellite images. They couldn't tell you how big the storm was until it was a day or so away. They had no technology to study the storms yet they stood there and gave you their best guess. Now they can predict landfall as far as 5 days away with a lot more accuracy. It's still hard to tell how strong the storms will be, but each season they're getting better and they can find them off of Africa and basically watch them all the way.

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  2. Yes, it is why Nash was so famous... I loved him, really I did....
    those binoculars just became worth a lot in Louisiana. better watch them close... Craig's list would give a good price on those things...

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  3. I too was suprised last night when I read it on the computer. I so remember that he was the only one my parents had on for those storms. It is amazing to see how far we have come in technology and predicting things, but he got it right without all those gadets.

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  4. when i was little and was brought to maw-ma and paw-pa's house so my mom can go to work, nash was always on the television!! i remember me calling him Santa Clause!

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  5. sorry i was thinking someone else that used to be on the news!!

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