Signal Tribune Newspaper

By Neena Strichart

The thunderous noises were practically deafening. Just seconds later, water started pouring from the ceilings into every one of our offices. Ceiling tiles were falling. The entire building was shaking. Was it thunder and lightning? Was it a tornado? Was it the start of a horrendous earthquake? With no time to ponder the cause we all started yelling “get out!” Dashing for the front door we ran outside and took a head count. Good, everyone was safe. What the heck happened?!
That was our experience at the offices of the Signal Tribune at approximately 3:45pm Wednesday, Jan. 20, 2010.
It turns out that the roof of our side of the building had collapsed from the weight of the water collected from the downpour earlier in the day. Everything was soaked. We salvaged what we could– grabbing computers off of desks and memorabilia off of walls. Thanks to Signal Hill Police Department and LA County Fire Station #60 personnel, we were able to rescue most of the important items.
Now, what the heck do we do? The paper needs to go to the printer at 10am the next morning. No time to worry about that.
There’s so much more to the story– I’ll share more with you next week. Right now the important thing is I’m sitting here at home at 9:10 am Thursday morning writing this because our production manager, Kelly Nielsen, stayed up all night, dried out his computer and finished the paper at home. He called at 8am and told me to get my column written because the paper was ready to go to print. Amazing!
Since he had no time or ability to copy edit the paper, please don’t hold Cory Bilicko responsible for any errors in this week’s issue– I assure you it isn’t his fault. If we have to blame anyone, let’s blame Mother Nature!