I wish I had a generator

Not a stupid question at all, KG. It was tough. Obviously, there were a lot of rural areas that we simply couldn't get to, and some areas in town that we weren't able to reach until the streets were cleared. We did a ton of rack sales and even set up a table right on the street in front of the office where we sold a lot of papers to passers-by. Also, our website got hits that numbered in the hundreds of thousands every day. In fact, all the papers in the area set up pages where people could post inquiries for loved ones and we were able to take calls from people in the area to post information on their whereabouts.

 

In 13 years here, we've lost power three times.

1) A huge wind storm knocked out the main power supply line to town and it took two days to fix. We printed in the neighboring town. It was also then that we leaned our phones won't work in a power failure because the relays within the building need electricity.

2) Big downtown fire. Our building wasn't harmed but they had to cut the power to all downtown. Again, printed in the neighboring town. This time, we had to lug the computers over because they didn't give notice before they turned the power off and we didn't get a chance to burn CD's. I missed that one because the high school basketball team was at the state tournament.

3) Two weeks ago, a big storm passed through. This was the first incident since we switched to mornings. Our publisher brought her husband's generator and, wouldn't ya know it, just 5 minutes after we got everything hooked up and running, the power was restored. She was stunned that the professional guys who hooked all our new comps together two years ago didn't include some kind of power backup.

 

Thanks, albert. After I lost my job to cutbacks, I took a part-time job as a carrier to make ends meet. That has now led me to management in home delivery, and tornadoes wreak havoc on our routes, making my job a nightmare. I can't leave it up to the carriers to try to find ways around everything, so I get stuck out for hours and hours trying to get to any customer I possibly can. I've climbed over fallen trees and walked unbelievable distances to get papers to as many subscribers as possible. Sometimes being dedicated sucks.

 

At that point, I think the customers would just have to deal with a missing paper.

 

Because we weren't publishing on site (because of loss of water pressure, not loss of power) following Katrina, the days papers were making it here midday from being printed in Columbus, Ga. We had absurdly early deadlines so they could get our paper printed and on the road before theirs rolled, so we'd take stacks of papers and go stand in the middle of intersections and hand them out. We'd take them out the next day and throw them on driveways in neighborhoods where we were reporting, too. They were all free for some time after the storm anyway.