Sunday, December 27, 2009
Carriers came through in historic snow
From the newsroom
Carole Tarrant, editor
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Like the Postal Service, The Roanoke Times' delivery team trudges through wind, snow, sleet and rain. That's every day, even including the morning of a historic snowfall last week that essentially shut down Southwest Virginia.
More than 400 people -- delivery managers, carriers and drivers -- scrambled well before dawn Dec. 19 and assessed their mission: How could they deliver the newspaper to 64,000-plus households in a mountainous region buried in anywhere from 14 to 28 inches of snow?
Before I tell you the outcome -- and your reaction -- I wanted to share a bit of relevant background about our company's work culture.
In the newsroom, it is all too easy to focus on ourselves -- our stories, our photos, our sources, our journalism. Our tunnel vision can prompt us to forget the small army that assembles each morning to get what we write into your hands.
We do forget, it's true. But it's not as though we have no firsthand experience to draw upon. In fact, every new employee of The Roanoke Times is required to shadow a carrier on his or her route for one morning.
It's a ritual that's part of our employee orientation, one that prompts good-humored hazing of newbies with advice such as, "Make sure you take Dramamine."
Even those of us who've worked in newsrooms for decades come back from that pre-dawn delivery route with a new appreciation for our circulation department.
My regards for that team only rose after hearing stories of the lengths to which they went to deliver papers on Dec. 19 and 20.
They broke paths through knee-deep snow, ambled up steep driveways and gingerly drove unplowed rural roads.
A Lexington delivery truck driver spent the night in a Red Cross shelter after his vehicle got stuck in the snow. Three drivers bound for New River were waylaid for hours along Interstate 81, along with thousands of other motorists.
In the end, we estimate we delivered 65 percent to 70 percent of our papers to subscribing households at some point Saturday. In some locations, readers received their Saturday papers on Sunday. In others, it was Monday before they received the previous two days' papers.
Snowbound readers reacted in two ways to our delivery efforts. Some expressed joy and appreciation at the sight of their Roanoke Times in its familiar green wrapper at the end of their drive (sometimes buried in yet more snow). Others passionately called us, asking "when, oh when would the paper arrive?"
Reader MK Kahn-Chittum of Roanoke was so delighted at the appearance of her Saturday paper that she e-mailed us her thanks. Her carrier, Darin Delancy, had walked up 18 unshoveled steps for an 8 a.m. delivery.
"I did not expect a paper at all today, much less so early in the morning with impassable snow," Kahn-Chittum wrote. "I wonder how many people who receive a paper each day are aware that a real person has to get out in all kinds of weather for our convenience. Thank you to Mr. Delancy and to all the paper carriers. Your efforts are much appreciated!"
Our circulation director, Angela Campbell, would like to thank readers for their patience if they did not receive a paper or it arrived very late. But she also asks for your consideration, given circumstances that in fact prompted the Postal Service to not deliver, in some instances, until Tuesday.
"We had two responsibilities -- to get the paper out but also to make sure our carriers were safe," Campbell said.
She understands why 3,000 subscribers called with complaints about delivery issues.
"We appreciate it enough that we did everything humanly possible to get the paper out," Campbell said. "But we had to make sure our delivery force was safe."
More than a week later, we can look back and give thanks that our employees and region survived the Big One of 2009 without harm but with plenty of stories to tell. I'm glad we were able to preserve them in that Dec. 19, 2009, paper -- a copy of which I've kept as a collector's item.
