'Times-Pic' Editor Amoss: Being Home Again is Great -- And Stressful

By: Mark Fitzgerald There's an unwritten rule these days at the offices of The Times-Picayune, Editor Jim Amoss says.

"The tacit code around here is, if your cell phone rings and it's an insurance adjuster or a roofer or a contractor, you go. There is no meeting more important than that," Amoss said in a phone interview Wednesday night. "Nobody can stop you from taking that call, not the publisher, not the editor, nobody."

Times-Picayune journalists are finally back in their New Orleans headquarters, a building that escaped the devastation wrought when Hurricane Katrina barreled into Louisiana on Aug. 29. The building wasn't flooded, and the newsroom, Amos said with a laugh, is probably cleaner than it's ever been.

But three weeks after the paper's return to New Orleans, Amoss added, the stress "is every bit as great as it ever was" during the storm, including the staff's now-famous evacuation to Baton Rouge in circulation trucks as floodwaters rose around the newspaper building.

"In the beginning, it was the stress of not knowing what ever happened to your house or your car," he said. "Now, it's the stress of, what am I going to do? Should I demolish my house? And if I do, is it going to have to be raised on 10-foot piling?"

Then there's the problem of getting in touch with insurance adjusters -- which explains the cell phone rule.

Nevertheless, it's great to be back in New Orleans, he said. "We're in our element here," he said. "To have our own backyard to report on, to have our own presses at our disposal is just terrifically pleasing. Everyone feels that way -- even people who lost houses and are having to make do with temporary housing situations."

New Orleans itself is reminiscent of Berlin during the Cold War, Amoss said, with "absolutely unprecedented devastation on the one hand, and on the other the really vibrant commercial buzz that's returned to the oldest parts of town."

In their three weeks home, Amoss said, journalists "see both the progress that is being made -- really day to day things change -- and are confronted with enormity of the devastation.

"It's truly staggering," he said, "and it will be for a while."