The blackout hit I while I leaving work. Since I was in a satellite office that was as close to my mother's house as mine I went there first. When I got there and discovered that the power was out, almost the first thing I did was turn on the radio to find how long it was going to last and what areas it was affecting.

Between AM and FM there were about 15 stations broadcasting. Want to know how many were giving out information about the blackout? One. Just one.

The rest were broadcasting their regular music programs or baseball games. I could not believe it. Half the state is without power, and the only source of news is one station. How were people supposed to learn what was going on? If you don't have power and the telephone lines are overwhelmed, the only thing you have is the radio. Wasn't there supposed to be an Emergency Broadcasting rule that was supposed to kick in and have these stations obligated to stop playing the latest Brittany Spears crap and tell us what the heck was going on? Especially the damned public radio station. I mean, you're funded by the government to play classical music during an emergency? Come on.

Because my home was to thirty miles to the south and the one station giving out information was forty miles to the north I had no clue that the power was still on at my place. I knew that there were some spots 40 miles north that had power but I had no idea that 30 miles south everything was ok. Instead of getting extra flashlights and bottled water we could have just all gone to my place. Sure the outage only lasted four hours, but for all I knew it could have lasted for days.

To the fourteen out of fifteen radio stations executives who decided to keep playing music while the power went out I say: Please quit your current jobs and find some work cleaning out toilets. I was going to say go work for McDonalds, but I'm not sure I'd trust you to competently fry a burger.