Atlanta meteorologist responds to death threats after Masters interruption

April 16 (UPI) -- An Atlanta meteorologist went on air to address alleged death threats she received after her news station broke into coverage of the 2019 Masters Tournament.

CBS46's Ella Dorsey went on air Sunday, during the final round of the major tournament which saw Tiger Woods earn his fifth Green Jacket at Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta, Ga. She was warning viewers of a tornado warning in the area.

The station did not take the golf coverage off, but used a split screen to talk about the warning of violent storms.

"To everyone sending me death threats right now: you wouldn't be saying a damn thing if a tornado was ravaging your home this afternoon," Dorsey tweeted Sunday afternoon. "Lives are more important than 5 minutes of golf. I will continue to repeat that if and when we cut into programming to keep people safe."

The National Weather Service confirmed 41 tornadoes in eight states this weekend.

Dorsey congratulated Woods about an hour after sending the tweet about the death threats. She addressed the situation again Monday night.

"This is not a plan that we stumbled upon," Dorsey said. "This was something that we had in place days in advance. We knew there was going to be severe weather, so we decided that if there were tornado warnings we would do a double box. So that we could keep you updated with the current weather situation and a lot of people that wanted to see the final round of the Masters could still watch that final round."

"We were on for about 10-12 minutes and in that time, the thousands of hateful emails, phone calls and Facebook messages and tweets that [we] received was unacceptable."

Dorsey's news director, Steve Doerr, confirmed the threats in a message to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

"The venom around this was insane, even by social media standards," Doerr said.

"... some keyboard tough guy trolls crossed the line. Not an imminent safety issue. They wouldn't be skeptical if they were here yesterday answering phone calls. People were vicious."