Untouched By Tornado p. 14

By: Stacy Jones WHEN TORNADOS TOUCHED down in Arkadelphia, Ark., the offices of the daily Sifting Herald were spared.
Still, the staff didn't have much time to relish their good luck. "Fortunately, the newspaper was untouched," said Herald publisher Judith Collis. "However, the fallout has affected us tremendously."
The fallout has meant a special edition, press overruns, long hours and extra staff borrowed from a Little Rock bureau.
"The damage and destruction is tremendous," said Collis. The town is "a sea of brick and stone."
On Sunday ? just 12 hours after the tornados hit ? the Herald had a special edition ready. The first run of 12,600 was nearly four times the paper's normal run of 3,200 copies per day. Although the Herald's regular publication days are Monday-Friday, Collis couldn't imagine waiting two days to inform the town's 10,000 residents. "There's no way we'd allow that," she said.
Weekday editions with smaller runs of 7,000 and 6,000, respectively, followed the special Sunday edition.
Collis is thinking about publishing a wrap-up edition, minus advertising, with proceeds going to aid tornado victims. The idea sounds great, but Collis, only partly joking, wondered, "How much harder I can work my reporters?"