From the editor’s desk: Avoiding disaster

Before last week I’d never heard of an atmospheric river. Now that it’s over I hope to never hear about another one. What a mess.

Our offices are located in Port aux Basques and as a result of the historic storm that landed last week there have been several major washouts on the Trans Canada Highway, cutting off our town from the rest of the province.

The Wreckhouse Press offices suffered some significant rain damage. In fact, we had a leak in our roof right over our printing press. Some quick action meant we were able to avoid any permanent damage to our equipment, but there have been some quality issues so you may see some minor streaking. Apologies for that, as it’s out of our hands for now. Until the roads are repaired the technician can’t service our press, but we have done our best in the meantime.

We also replaced part of our roof and the entire office ceiling. This shut us down for the better part of two days, which we made up for by working 16 hour days and through the past weekend.

The destroyed roads also meant that we were unable to deliver last week’s paper except online. We removed the paywall to help mitigate the delivery delay somewhat.

As a result, I have made a slightly unusual decision in my capacity as Editor-in-Chief. This edition of The Appalachian will be comprised of two different components. We will have last week’s edition wrapped within a special cover and with special content. Basically you will get two editions for the price of one.

I realize that this is an unusual edition, but I also hope that you bear with us and other residents and business of Port aux Basques and the Southwest Coast while we try to get our services to you back to normal.

If anyone ever says journalism is glamorous, call them a liar. It’s hard work and when a story is breaking, it can be inconvenient, requiring long hours. Basically nothing has gone right since last Monday.

Meanwhile there’s another storm on the horizon.

Brace yourselves!

#FromtheEditorsDesk #Opinion #Weekly