Wind blows us into action

Resslin' Around, by Casey Ressler

Thursday morning, people in the newsroom were running around, frantically tracking down fire after fire caused by the high winds, as well as scrambling to get the Internet up and running because we had an entire sports section worth of stories e-mailed from Nome.

Things didn't work out completely right -- you probably noticed there wasn't a sports section in Friday's paper, for the first time in memory. Other things got cut and held because the number of pages in the paper were also changing based on a number of factors, having electricity being at the top of that list.

But the entire morning, I sat and smiled at my desk, knowing this was the reason I enjoy being in the newspaper business. Those deadline-morning panics, while stressful and hectic, make this business fun.

Thursday started out by myself and Frank Ameduri, our editor, getting to work around 6:30 a.m., only to find no power. We had to have the paper done by 11 a.m., and no power was certainly an obstacle to overcome -- not only because our computers wouldn't work, but even more importantly, that first pot of coffee couldn't be brewed.

When debating what we should do -- drive miles and miles to a coffeeshop with power, or brave the outage and hope for the best -- that's when my cell phone rang, and my wife was shouting that there were two electrical transformers that blew up behind our house, and a good-sized fire was spreading behind the house. As fast as the wind was blowing, I was on my way home. The fire was put out by our great fire department, thankfully, and I was back to work as fast as I could get there.

The power back on, the attention went to getting the latest information about the numerous fires, and to get the paper done.

I was proud of the way the newsroom snapped into action -- photographer Will Woody was all over the Valley, Frank was scrambling to fill spaces, reporters Rindi White and Scott Christiansen were tracking down leads and getting stories filed on a very tight deadline.

The whole scene brought back images of the Miller's Reach Fire, when things were changing, news-wise, on a second-by-second basis. Covering something that elusive is a challenge, but it's what makes our jobs exciting.

A number of professions reacted the same way Thursday. Fire crews were scrambling, and with as many fires as there were that morning, coupled with the unbelievable winds, they all should get a pat on the back for making sure this entire Valley didn't go up in flames.

People at MEA were faced with the same problem. Powerlines were falling every minute, literally, and they were there to make sure people were safely away from the live wires. Power outages were everywhere, but the fact they had so many people back, up and running, by the end of the day spoke volumes about the amount of work they were doing.

A friend of mine works for a heating company out here, and he stopped by our house on his way home from work, around 9:30 p.m., to see if we had power and our pipes weren't froze. He looked like he had been through the war. It showed me two things -- first, he's a great friend to have, and secondly, everyone was tested Thursday.

Sometimes, things don't work out -- and I'm sure sports editor Jeremiah Bartz, who was in Nome through yesterday, won't be too happy to find all his hard work at the finish of the Iditarod got held until today's paper, instead of Friday's edition. But that was the only area in which we had a hurdle we could not overcome.

During the routine, day-to-day operations of our lives, there aren't many moments when the entire scope of our jobs changes in a second.

But when a situation like that does arise, it's nice to know we all can adapt and jump into action -- regardless of what profession you are in.

And to think that here, we did it without that first pot of coffee being brewed to start our morning.

Casey Ressler (valleylife@frontiersman.com) is the Valley Life editor. He doesn't have bad hair days when the wind blows, now that he sports a shaved dome.