Published: September 23, 2008 02:25 pm            

Hurricane-battered newspapers publishing combined editions

Their buildings rocked and flooded by Hurricane Ike, two newspapers on the Texas coast have banded together to cover the storm’s damage and publish a joint edition.

The Port Arthur News and The Orange Leader published a combined edition Monday and Tuesday, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future, said News Publisher Roger Underwood. Skeleton crews are circulating the newspapers free to the few people left in those cities, which remain under mandatory evacuation orders.

Copies are dropped in open stores, said Underwood, and will be left wherever the Federal Emergency Management Agency sets up a local command center.

A sister newspaper, The Palestine Herald-Press, printed the editions Monday and Tuesday. Another sister newspaper, The Huntsville Item, probably will take over printing duties now that its own power has been restored.

Community Newspaper Holdings Inc. owns all four newspapers. The Birmingham, Ala., company owns newspapers, Web sites, television stations and publications that specialize in local news and information in 23 states.

Port Arthur and Orange were close to the center of the hurricane as the massive Category 2 storm crashed over the Texas coast with winds of more than 100 mph early Saturday morning. The storm spanned nearly 600 miles when it made landfall over Galveston. Port Arthur is about 90 miles to the northeast; Orange is about 10 miles beyond that.

The Port Arthur News and The Orange Leader, both seven-day newspapers, dropped Sunday’s editions and instead distributed a combined Sunday-Monday newspaper that reported on widespread wind damage and flooding.

Bridge City, a low-lying community between the two cities, was hardest hit in the region. Though no fatalities have been reported, Bridge City Mayor Kirk Roccaforte estimated 99 percent of the homes were damaged by water, many of them severely.

“What we hear is it’s going to take years, if ever, for Bridge City to be the same,” said Gabriel Pruett, an Orange Leader sportswriter who took over as the newspaper’s acting editor before the storm hit.

Pruett said his sister’s house in Bridge City was under nine feet of water. Underwood said two Port Arthur News employees who lived in Bridge City lost their homes.

Pruett evacuated the area with his mother late last week. He has been remotely updating the Leader’s Web site with photos and dispatches sent by two reporters left in the city, Debby Schamber and Tommy Mann Jr.

They are among a handful of Orange and Port Arthur staff that stayed or returned almost immediately after the storm, despite orders to evacuate.

Port Arthur News editor Roger Cowles weathered the storm in his home, equipped with a generator and a dial-up Internet connection. It has since served a base of operations as he reports, shoots photos, updates the Web site and paginates a combined edition of the two newspapers.

Photographer Mike Tobias and reporter Cody Pastorella have been on the scene, as well, collecting stories and photos, as well.

Other reporters and editors have been working from their homes or evacuation points and are calling in stories.

Underwood and a handful of staff are stationed at the News’ offices, even though it is without electricity.

“We’re managing here. It’s like a camp,” said Underwood, who was on a supply run in Mississippi when the storm hit but returned around noon Saturday. He expects generators for the office later this week and hopes it will return to full operation within the next few days.

Underwood said damage to the office, itself, is minimal. It will take much longer to restore The Orange Leader’s office, which was flooded by more than a foot of water and is now caked with more than an inch of mud.

Leader publisher Eric Bauer, who rode out the hurricane in his home, is planning a clean-up while hitting the streets himself to report news for the newspaper and the Web

Bauer said damage in the city was not as bad as initially reported.

“This is not as bad as Rita — thank heavens,” he said. Hurricane Rita raked the Louisiana and Texas coast in September 2005.

Ike roiled other Texas communities that are covered by CNHI newspapers.

In Huntsville, where Ike’s winds ripped down trees and left most of the city without power, the newspaper limped by on generators, updating its Web site with help from a local radio station and Sam Houston State University. The Huntsville Item also printed in Palestine until power was restored.

“All the other sister newspapers were there to help everybody else out,” said Terry Connor, vice president and manager for CNHI’s Gulf Coast Division, which includes the Huntsville and Palestine newspapers. “It’s the old cliché, but it was a team effort. Everybody pulled together.”

Underwood said the Port Arthur and Orange newspapers are making a day-to-day decision about how long they will publish a combined edition.

Much depends on when power is restored.

“I think it will be the rest of this week anyway,” he said.

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David Joyner is CNHI’s executive news editor. E-mail him at djoyner@cnhi.com.

        

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