Submitted: August 29, 2006 - 9:23am
Last updated: February 21, 2008 - 3:33am
DELIVERING NEWS OF THE STORM THAT STOPPED THE PRESSES
Among the many cruelties delivered by Hurricane Katrina, there was this: The people most in need of information about the storm were the least likely to be able to see, hear or read about it. With electricity wiped out in the affected areas, receiving local broadcast or cable TV signals was nearly impossible. Only New Orleans radio station WWL-AM reportedly stayed on the air. Printing a newspaper in New Orleans was a cosmic absurdity: Even if the Times-Picayune, New Orleans's largest daily, hadn't had its presses disabled by rising floodwaters, delivering a printed paper would have been an act of madness, given the state of roads and bridges in the paper's circulation area.
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Paul Farhi and Teresa Wiltz] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/31/AR200508...
(requires registration)
