Here Comes the Rain Again, at Waterloo 'Courier'

By: E&P Staff Rain leaked into the Courier building in Waterloo, Iowa, early Monday morning, short-circuiting an electrical line and sending smoke through the building.

After hearing a loud noise and seeing smoke pour through the vents, sportswriter Jim Nelson, the building's only occupant at about 1 a.m., called 911, though an alarm already had alerted firefighters.

Publisher David Braton said the short in the basement seemed to occur when water reached an electrical line to the side of the building that housed his paper's press.

Though the short cut power to that side of the building, the Courier has not been printed there since late last October, when the Color Web Printers division of Gazette Communications, publisher of The Gazette in Cedar Rapids, took over the work. Color Web had printed the Courier's Sunday color comics for years and handled its printing during last June's flooding.

The Courier's offices did not lose power but were filled with smoke.