PORT ANGELES – A power outage crippled the main plant of the Peninsula Daily News for most of Monday, paralyzing its press and freezing its computerized writing, editing, advertising, circulation, business and photo systems.
After almost 12 hours of work, repairs were completed, and electricity was restored at about 5:30 p.m. – in time to avoid emergency plans to print the newspaper in the Seattle area.
For most of Monday, portable generators roared in the PDN’s parking lot while reporters, editors and other staff members hopscotched across a snake’s nest of cables inside the darkened building.
Without electricity, the presses could not turn – and not a single letter of any of the countless words in the paper’s articles or advertisements could be typeset.
But by midmorning, about a dozen of the newspaper’s more than 50 computer terminals were limping along, hooked up to the generators which had been rented or brought in by PDN employees.
But there was not enough power for lights in the building at 305 W. First St. in downtown Port Angeles.
Several staffers worked by the glow of their computer screens.
Cause of the outage was the failure of underground electrical cables beneath the alley behind the PDN’s building.
Power went out initially at about midnight Monday but was restored by replacing a transformer fuse, according to Dean Mangiantini, PDN production manager.
Electricity failed completely at about 1:45 a.m.
The outage was diagnosed in the cables that had supplied the building since it was built in 1972.
Electricians from Port Angeles City Light and from Olympic Electric Co. Inc. started making repairs before dawn to replace the underground cables with new ones strung from a utility pole.
Work involved mounting a new equipment and drilling holes through the building’s concrete conglomerate wall.
Unlike the electricity, humor never failed.
Photographer Tom Thompson posed Publisher John Brewer in front of the PDN’s building with a handmade sign that read, “Will work for electricity.”
Circulation Director Dave Jacobsen walked through the office, tongue in cheek, shaking coins in a coffee cup and asking for contributions to pay the electric bill.
Before repairs were finished, the generators had burned about 30 gallons of fuel, Jacobsen said.
“That was the least expensive part,” he said.
“It was buying all the extension cords [to run power from the generators].”
