TRYIN' TO REASON WITH THE HURRICANE SEASON

Kudos to Ace Indy Star Designer Ryan Hildebrandt for a great front page Wednesday. Indiana got their 50 cents worth yesterday.

Meanwhile, I got to thinking about the emergency plans that some newspapers have for covering disasters. Back at the Merc, we had done test runs for publishing a newspaper off-site after a catastrophic earthquake. One wonders if any of the Gulf papers had similar plans in place. But with all the emphasis Knight Ridder puts on planning, I had to laugh when I saw this little tidbit about the Biloxi Sun-Herald from a story in yesterday's Trib:

"While the Sun Herald had an emergency plan in place well ahead of Katrina's noisy arrival, it wasn't of much use since it relied heavily on the use of the Tallahassee Democrat. Earlier this month, Gannett acquired the Democrat from Knight Ridder."

Ha!

Then I saw this:

"Knight Ridder sent assistant vice president for news Bryan Monroe from its San Jose, Calif., headquarters to Atlanta on Sunday, armed with satellite phones."

So Biloxi's emergency publishing plan involves using the Merc's sat phones? Awesome.

Okay, I'm out. Don't forget to shop Kittle's Labor Day Sale!