Thanks for sharing the power | IN OUR OPINION
Published 12:37 pm Sunday, March 20, 2016
Bainbridge Island was a surreal place at 5 a.m. Thursday, just after this week’s power outage left everyone from Agate Passage to South Beach powerless.
Stoplights all along Highway 305 were dark, and at the intersection of High School Road, the only thing to be seen was the bright “Safeway” sign ablaze at one end of the Village Shopping Center parking lot and the distant green or white specks of exit signs running on backup power in nearby businesses.
The darkness along Hildebrand Lane was especially disconcerting — that is, for an editor on his way to the office to put together Friday’s edition of the Bainbridge Review.
Power outages are never welcome, and seldom come at a convenient time.
This week’s power loss left the Review a bit adrift, as there was no guarantee that the lights would come on in time for us to make final edits to our stories, upload photographs or finish the design and layout of much of this edition’s pages before it was due at the printing press before noon.
But — we got by with a little help from our friends.
So pardon us, please, as we use this space this week to share our thanks with those who helped get the March 11 edition to bed.
When the clock neared 7:30 a.m. Thursday, and the realization sunk in that the power would come on much later than we could bear — given the widespread nature of the outages across Kitsap County — the Review newsroom packed up its computers, keyboards and other gear and headed north.
Fortunately, the lights were on in Poulsbo at our sister newspaper, the North Kitsap Herald.
The staff of the Herald graciously made room for us in their newsroom and we made haste to get the paper to press, while the folks in advertising fortified us with doughnuts, biscuits-and-gravy and some sort of vegetarian egg casserole. There was fruit, too.
All in all, it was a hectic morning. But let’s keep hoping that our next outage comes at a more predictable time, like during a crucial Seahawks football game or maybe, the next Superbowl.
