OPINION: Matt Leclercq: Disaster mode in the Observer newsroom
In retrospect, it was not the safest spot. The hurricane winds were rattling the 15-foot glass windows that are within shattering distance of the lobby's couch. But I was so exhausted, and all of the other couches and air mattresses were taken. Sleep -- even a couple of hours -- was precious last week, and I knew that our overnight team taking over in the newsroom would stay on top of the urgent updates.
And that they did. The Observer's newsroom operated 24 hours a day while slow-moving Florence pummeled the Sandhills. Our No. 1 priority was to keep people informed in real time, which meant hundreds -- if not thousands -- of updates posted to our website, on all of our Facebook pages and Twitter accounts, and through breaking news emails. That also meant doing live video on Facebook to show scenes of flooding, live interviews with city and county authorities, creating photo galleries and answering readers' questions as they poured in during the storm.
Oh, and we also had to put out a newspaper every day.
It was truly all hands on deck. Our news, sports and features writers went out into the storm to tell the stories of people who were living through it, including
Columnist
Military editor
Photographers
And senior editor
As I write this on Friday evening, most of our newsroom's journalists are on Day 11 or 12 of working up to 14 hours a day. We're unshaven and wrinkled, having survived mostly on Cheez-Its, candy, pizza and coffee.
So while it may be hard to think straight right now, or speak in coherent sentences, let me type these words with complete clarity: I could not possibly be prouder of this newsroom and the work it produced over the past two weeks. They were all over this storm, from when it first appeared likely to hit
Hurricane Florence was a disaster for
Executive editor
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