By: Joe Strupp It wasn?t enough that The News Herald in Panama City, Fla. had to endure Hurricane Ivan ramming into the Gulf Coast last night. The daily paper also felt the wrath of one of 12 tornadoes that swept through the county, ripping up trees and causing havoc in its own parking lot.
?It skipped right across the building,? said Tony Simmons, assistant managing editor/news for the 31,000 daily circulation paper. ?It broke some trees in half and spun a car around, but the building is fine. No major leaks, but not a steady power supply.?
In hard-hit Pensacola, the News Journal could not be reached by phone late Thursday morning, with several calls hitting a busy signal.
Callers to the Northwest Florida Daily News in Fort Walton Beach, Fla., about 40 miles east of Pensacola, also were stopped, receiving the following poignant message: ?Due to Hurricane Ivan, our business offices will be closed until Friday. We will be delivering papers to non-evacuated areas. However, if your carrier has evacuated, you will not receive a paper until they return.?
As the hurricane moved further inland, hitting mostly in Alabama Thursday, other papers offered callers similar responses. ?Our offices are closed and no employees are expected to report for work today,? is today's greeting to those who phone the Montgomery (Ala.) Advertiser. ?Thank you for calling; please be safe.?
The only person reachable at the Northwest Florida Daily News Thursday morning was newsroom secretary Dorothy Mullin, who said reporters and editors were out of the building after a long night that saw about 30 people -- including her -- sleeping in the newsroom.
?You could say we had a hurricane party,? said Mullin, who added that Irish whiskey and other drinks flowed. ?The good Jameson stuff.? But she added that the generator powering the building during the night went on and off, while winds and other noises made sleeping difficult.
?We had a little bit of flooding coming under the door of the circulation department, but that was it,? Mullin said. ?I slept on the floor, but the wind was bad and the building was creaking.?
Mullin said the paper, like several affected by Ivan, published the Thursday edition late Wednesday. ?We have no decision yet on Friday?s paper,? she said.
With Ivan coming, the Panama City paper moved up its Wednesday evening deadline to 2 p.m., but power went out in the middle of printing, Simmons said, while a 7 p.m. curfew that remained in effect early Thursday morning, hampered newspaper delivery. He said he did not know how many papers made it out, but said plans remained to publish a Friday edition.
?Even if that means sending information to another paper and having to print elsewhere, we will,? Simmons said. ?It will be some time today or tomorrow.?
In Biloxi, Miss., The Sun Herald, which had practically shut down Wednesday afternoon after putting out an early Thursday edition and covering the hurricane on its Web site, reopened Thursday morning with plans to publish a Friday edition as usual. Blogger Don Hammack, who normally covers sports for the paper, had been up all night collecting reports from staffers who were out in the field filing via laptops and cell phones to him.
?I got maybe an hour of useful sleep,? said Hammack, who worked out of the local Civil Defense Center. ?We posted about 120 items.? Most of the postings came in the form of ?quick snippets? from reporters in the field rather than formal stories. One of the offerings from The Sun Herald's Margaret Baker:
?During a 4:30 p.m. meeting at City Hall in Pascagoula, Police Chief Michael Whitmore reported no significant storm-related problems, though the winds had downed two trees on Market Street. Other trees were reported down in a few yards. Whitmore said police officers had some problems with loitering and people under the influence of alcohol and involved in domestic-related disturbances. Stephen Mitchell, the city's chief building official, also issued a warning to residents to watch out for scam artists expected in the area once the storm passes.?
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