Adam Driever, career meteorologist for local WRHO News on Channel 11, is out after being blamed for the worst storm in years. “This one was awful, it was historic and traumatic, and it’s all on Adam,” explained Lieutenant Ralph Bongatron in a press conference early Tuesday morning. “He’s been telling us it was going to be low nineties all week. And just look what happened.” 

Driever, once considered the jolliest, stonedest meteorologist since Willard Scott, saw his lifelong reputation go up in flames after predicting late June temperatures to begin two weeks ago. Instead, historic storms and cold temperatures crippled the area. Apocalyptic scenes of survival have trickled out of devastated area, where electricity was down for hours--then days--and some are still without power. 

"Damn that Adam Driever," said Carmen Simon, resident of hard-hit Ditchweed, in the southern Highlands. "If he'd just been more right, this never would've happened."

Said a neighbor, "Can you believe this guy? People dying and starving, all because this meathead told us we'd be just fine!" 

As the crisis unfolded, elected leaders went public blaming everything, from the renewable sources that make up a fraction of the grid, to the very people in charge who, with an air of superiority, have hailed the grid’s supremacy for decades, despite scientists, engineers, and other regulatory agency’s warnings of time worn infrastructure--not to mention, the old wive’s tale of climate change, which causes weather extremes.

But after a few days, authorities reached a consensus. It was announced that the storm was the direct cause of Adam Driever’s untimely, counterfactual prediction. 

"It wasn't the people in charge," Ditchweed chamber of commerce president Genessa Tjader told constituents during an emergency virtual meeting. "It’s that darn meteorologist. He did this."

Another long-time critic of logic, Senator Ted Crud, was chastised after leaving during the freeze, for sunny Canncun. His office released a statement that said Crud blamed his regrettable decision on two Johnsonville-sized blunts rolled with Space Queen wax. "Were it not for the fact that he was stoned out of his gourd, the public would be absolutely right to demand his resignation and label him scum. We absolutely concur: that this behavior from any non-stoned leader should be considered balls-out villainy."

“Still,” the statement concluded, “curse that Adam Driever, curse him and his lousy weather report.” 

Driever, who has been receiving death threats, has quit working, and moved to an undisclosed motel somewhere in Cannatown’s northern suburbs. Meanwhile, already-desperate citizens struggle to cope with the worst crisis at what seems the 11th hour. “The only consolation I have,” says Simon, “is that we have trustworthy people in charge--sans any proclivity for special interests--who can tell us exactly who to chase with our pick-axes and torches when this is all over.”