Jim Cantore helps out MS Coast school district with video message on Hurricane Zeta
Schools across the Coast are closing tomorrow to prepare for Hurricane Zeta, but kids in one district got the news from a hurricane season fixture: the Weather Channel’s Jim Cantore.
“Hey Bay-Waveland School District’s kids, I got news for you,” he says in the video posted to the district’s Facebook page. “You’re gonna have an off day tomorrow in terms of coming to school, but you’re still gonna have digital learning.”
Tuesday morning, Cantore reported live from the beach in Gulfport. Bay-Waveland School District Superintendent Sandra Reed told the Sun Herald she was watching him on the Weather Channel when she got an idea: What if Cantore delivered the school’s-closed-tomorrow message to her students and staff?
“Our schools have a lot going on right now,” she said.
From the coronavirus pandemic to an exceptionally busy hurricane season, it has been a stressful school year. A video message from Cantore would be “a good little pick-me-up,” Reed said.
So she sent two employees, Director of Technology Aaron Lewis and Instructional Technologist Tiffany Maddox, on a mission to find Cantore. The two drove about 30 minutes from Bay St. Louis to Gulfport. When they got there, he was still at the Gulfport Harbor.
They asked him if he’d be willing to record a message, and he immediately agreed, Reed said. He asked a couple of questions about the district’s closure plan and was ready to go.
“He’s been around the hurricane world,” Reed said. “He knows when schools are out what kind of options that they have, and now with covid and all, we pretty much all have distance learning programs.”
Cantore’s presence on the Coast is a somewhat unwelcome sign that South Mississippi is facing the possibility of a direct hit by a tropical system. Forecasts show Zeta could make landfall as a hurricane somewhere between Morgan City, Louisiana and the Mississippi-Alabama border.
But he’s also a beloved celebrity in the country’s hurricane-prone areas, including the Mississippi Gulf Coast. This season, he chased Hurricane Sally east along the Gulf Coast, with a stop in Gulfport.
The Weather Channel announced yesterday that he’d be reporting on Zeta from Gulfport, while colleague Justin Michaels was sent to Bay St. Louis. Yesterday, Cantore greeted fans at Mary Mahoney’s restaurant in Biloxi.
In the announcement to Bay-Waveland students, he also reflected on his own experiences with severe weather as a kid growing up in blizzard-prone New England.
“Back in the day when I went to school, for snow in New England, we just had off days, but you don’t have that fortune because of technology,” he said. “Sorry, but have a good day, stay safe everybody, and we’ll see you back at school probably by the time Thursday or Friday rolls around.”
(That assessment was a bit optimistic. Bay-Waveland schools will be closed Thursday, too.)
This story was originally published October 27, 2020 at 1:35 PM.
