Pushkin.

What's your biggest fear?

I'd say the biggest fear is something, a mistake that I would make,

that would damage my credibility to where people would not listen to me when there's a tornado down.

James Span, meteorologist, may be Alabama's best known person aside from some football coaches.

He's all over TV talking about the weather, especially when the weather might kill you.

This is a tornado emergency, but the cities of Tuscaloosa and Northport and the campus of the University of Alabama.

James is one of those people who's never really had a job because he found his calling.

He once stayed on the air as he watched a tornado make straight for his own home, pleading with people to see the risk.

If you're just joining us, this is James Span with Taylor Cerralo, mainly checking on my wife.

She's okay and she's in the tornado shelter.

Okay, go ahead, Taylor, I'm sorry.

I was put on this planet to mitigate loss of life when their tornadoes flying around here.

And I have to be very careful in what I say and what I do, not just on the air, but on social media and in real life.

To build trust with his audience, James goes to incredible links.

He's published a children's book called Benny and Chipper, prepared, not scared.

He spends time in dollar stores talking to people.

Because the people who shop in dollar stores are also the people who live in trailer homes, the sort of homes that tornadoes obliterate.

He memorizes the names of Alabamians who've died in storms.

People he might have saved.

There's lots of them.

On a single day back in April 2011, a line of tornadoes in Alabama killed 253 people.

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