Hurricane Wilma Forces 'Sun-Sentinel' to Scramble

By: Joe Strupp It has taken three different newspapers -- one of them a fierce competitor -- to print The South Florida Sun-Sentinel of Fort Lauderdale during the past two days, thanks to a power outage left over from Hurricane Wilma.

Down to three of its four presses following a leaky roof problem during Monday's hurricane downpour, the Sun-Sentinel turned to its archrival, The Miami Herald, for help printing parts of the daily paper for the Wednesday and Thursday editions. Meanwhile, The Orlando Sentinel, a fellow Tribune Company property, is handling some of the Sun-Sentinel's advance section printing this week.

Problems began for the paper on Monday when the leaky roof damaged the printing presses at the nearby Deerfield Beach plant, requiring the entire paper to be printed in Orlando on Tuesday. Since then, three of the presses have come back on line, but a power outage in the main Fort Lauderdale building has forced the entire Sun-Sentinel newsroom staff to relocate to the Deerfield Beach site.

"We're bonding," Publisher Robert Gremillion said about the crowded situation in Deerfield Beach. "We are letting people who don't need to be here work from home and we are finding a way to get around it."

Gremillion had expected to have power restored to the main office by Thursday, noting that the lack of electricity affects everything in the building from plumbing to air conditioners. He also said a 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. curfew, expected to be lifted Friday, had delayed each day's delivery of the paper to most customers.

"But the papers have been normal-sized," Gremillion proclaimed. "And our Web site is getting tons of traffic from the outside world."

The Sun-Sentinel was among several South Florida newspapers affected by the hurricane's extended power outage. The Palm Beach Post, which had been down to one printing press on Tuesday, was back up to two Thursday, according to Publisher Tom Giuffrida. But he said the paper remained without outside power, operating on diesel generators.

"The main problem is gasoline and carrier supplies," Giuffrida said. "Except for gasoline, we are running as normal."

The Herald, which had been forced to print its Tuesday paper at The Tampa Tribune, expected to be printing itself again by Wednesday morning. But officials there did not return calls for comment Wednesday.