October 2005

Hurricane stops the presses

About 10 Texas papers suspend publication in storm's aftermath

What happens when you publish your newspaper during a storm or disaster but there’s no one in town to read it?

Several Texas newspapers found out the hard way during Hurricane Rita’s trek across the Gulf of Mexico and eventual slam into the southeast and east Texas and western Louisiana coasts Sept. 24.

About 10 Texas newspapers in communities hard hit by the hurricane ceased publication for a week or more, including The Beaumont Enterprise and several neighboring weeklies.

But other coastal newspapers that had little to no storm damage in counties under evacuation orders found themselves in an interesting predicament.

The Galveston County Daily News, which at one point was projected in the direct path of Rita, published each day of the storm but distribution came to a virtual standstill without carriers or readers.

By Sept. 25 the staff was giving newspapers to anyone who said they were a subscriber at Galveston County stores, Dolph Tillotson wrote on the Rita Message Center TPA created in the storm’s aftermath.

By Sept. 27 most readers received a bundle of papers from the storm period, and many called to say how much they appreciated the “vacation pack,” containing a day-by-day history of the storm.

“Of course, we lost most of our revenue stream for a week or so, but advertisers are re-opening now and looking to us once again to reach out to customers. We’ve surely blown our budget for September, but we’re still here, and we’ll be back stronger than ever,” Tillotson wrote

News sister coastal newspapers The Facts in Clute and The Bay City Tribune uprooted their staffs and moved to another Southern Newspapers property the Seguin Gazette-Enterprise, which printed the Facts and Tribune and Saturday News.

The Victoria Advocate was in a similar predicament as Galveston. The staff got creative with its distribution because residents had evacuated inland.

“Although we didn’t publish on Friday (Sept. 23) — no carriers and much reduced readership — we had a unique partial recovery plan that served many of our readers who had evacuated. Thanks to great support from folks at the San Antonio Express-News, Austin American-Statesman and Bryan-College Station Eagle, we were able to publish a four-page section in San Antonio’s full ROP run on Friday and Saturday (Sept. 24) and two pages in the American-Statesman and Eagle on Saturday,” publisher John Roberts wrote on the message center. “Readers returning home have been highly complimentary about finding the Advocate in the pages of these other papers.”

The Newton County News also was able to keep publishing, in spite of major damage in the county, by being creative.

The staff powered up to owner Glenn Mitchell’s motor home generator and had three computers going, and continued to update the newspaper’s Web site www.newtonnews.com.

The Sept. 29 newspaper was printed and available on the streets Sept. 27 but the staff was unsure if it could be mailed to subscribers because the local post office was closed.

But many other newspapers in Rita’s path were not so lucky and still may be hanging in a balance with widespread power outages that officials predicted could take six weeks in some rural areas to restore.

Danny Reneau, publisher of the Silsbee Bee, had to lay off staff members temporarily until he could get up and running again. His press operation came to a halt with no electricity and he was looking into purchasing generators to keep his print jobs running.

TPA president Judy Johnson also was left in dire straits. Her newspaper The Hometown Press in Winnie sat in Rita’s path and publication was suspended for at least three weeks.

Judy and Buddy Johnson left Winnie prior to the storm and joined the stop-and-go procession heading north, eventually seeking shelter with a friend in Tyler. Residents were not allowed to return to Winnie for three weeks.

The Jasper Newsboy also took a hit and the newspaper suspended publication for about three weeks.

The Newsboy is part of Hearst Corp. and its sister paper and printer The Beaumont Enterprise also was out of commission for a week.

“While suspension of publication will be a severe blow to us and to our readers and advertisers, we will survive, and our hearts go out to those smaller independent papers that have sustained more devastating blows than we have,” Newsboy publisher Willis Webb wrote.

The Enterprise restarted publication Oct. 2 with an expanded storm edition.

Publisher Aubrey Webb told the Texas Daily Newspaper Association that the newspaper building sustained considerable roof damage, causing interior flooding on all three floors. The pressroom had water and there was water damage in the newspaper storage area.

Beaumont was under evacuation order and on Sept. 26 Aubrey Webb said “we have no one to print our paper and we have no one to deliver it and we have no one to deliver it to.”

The newspaper maintained a strong online presence during and after the storm, posting stories and photos and PDFs of the print version.

Houston Chronicle publisher Jack Sweeney told TDNA that the daily continued publishing during Rita, but had major distribution problems because of fuel shortages caused by the evacuation of an estimated 2 million residents who jammed freeways out of the metropolis.

The dailies Port Arthur News and Orange Leader, both owned by Community Newspaper Holdings Inc., ceased publication during the storm but maintained an online presence and returned to publication around Sept. 28.

The Buna Beacon office closed late on Sept. 22 in advance of Rita’s approach, but subsequent power outages left the newspaper in limbo.

“The Beacon is printed in Vidor, which is in worse shape than Buna, so we cannot print for the foreseeable future,” publishers Thomas & Melissa Swedoski wrote. “In addition, we have no revenue stream because all the businesses in Buna were also hit hard. We also can’t have rack sales because of that, and the mail service is suspended indefinitely.”