You all know my little personal drama by now. Heeding the dire warnings about Hurricane Irene, I took my wife, daughter and assorted animals to the in-laws’ house in the suburbs of Atlanta for the weekend.
The University of Missouri’s Jacqui Banaszynski paid my blog post about all this a wonderful compliment last night by tweeting:
Terrif use of blog-form w/ personal voice to do narrative of Facing Irene. By the charming @charlesapple.
Beaming with pride, I showed the tweet to my wife. She sniffed and said: ‘I’m guessing she’s never met you.”
Sigh.
The upside: We’re out of harm’s way.
The downside: Our house isn’t. Nor are our neighbors and our city. And it’s been pure torture to sit here this morning, read the reports of power outages and constant tornado warnings and feel totally helpless.
Here’s the latest portrait of Irene, from NASA’s GOES weather satellite.
Here’s a radar view of Hampton Roads and surrounding area this morning, via the Wunderground.
The eye of Irene is just off the very bottom center of that picture.
The only good thing about this whole disaster: The Weather Channel’s Jim Cantore is in New York City, as opposed to Virginia Beach. The further that disaster magnet is to our home, the better.
And — ahem — I mean that in the nicest possible way, of course.
I don’t have much time today for a review of the day’s pages. But here’s what I’m seeing, thanks to the daily archive at the Newseum…
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STAR NEWS
Wilmington, N.C.
Circulation: 40,596
Wilmington is just a few miles west of where Irene made landfall around 8 a.m. today. The plan there: Blow out a huge photo of gawkers venturing out on the Topsail Island fishing pier.
As you can see, that was a dangerous place to be Friday. But staffer Mike Spencer turned it into great art.
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NEWS & OBSERVER
Raleigh, N.C.
Circulation: 134,470
The paper in Raleigh also featured large art today of folks messing around where they probably shouldn’t.
That’s a woman and her two children, testing the waters in Atlantic Beach — again, very near where Irene later made landfall. The fact that the little girl is on the beach in rapidly increasing winds — with an umbrella — kind of proves the point that these folks have no clue what they’re messing with. It’d be much better if they were in their car, headed west as quickly as traffic would allow.
Having said that, the picture by staffer Travis Long is suitable for framing.
Wonderful stuff.
Oh, and if you didn’t watch the wonderful video slideshow posted Friday by the News & Observer, please check it out. It features a song performed by N&O staffers.
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VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Norfolk, Va.
Circulation: 152,198
Ditto, really, on the front page of the Virginian-Pilot, a paper that didn’t show up at the Newseum today. The folks in ankle-deep water are in Frisco, in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. And they really should have been evacuating.
The most important facts of the day are lined up across the top of the picture by staffer Steve Earley. The page was designed last night by ace visual journalist Robert Suhay.
Thanks to design+copy editing goddess, Diana D’Abruzzo, for sending me the page this morning.
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DAILY PRESS
Newport News, Va.
Circulation: 62,010
The folks across the James River led today with a NASA photo of the storm. There are plenty of these available. Looks like the Daily Press chose well.
My only quibble with this page: The designer left off a photo credit — accidentally, I’m sure. Although the many high-resolution NOAA and NASA satellite images out there are in the public domain and free for you to use, it’s still a good idea to tell readers from whence the image came.
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THE SUN
Baltimore, Md.
Circulation: 178,692
Up the Chesapeake Bay in Baltimore, Sun staffer Kenneth K. Lam caught a resident shopping for staples in a local grocery store. She wanted bottled water but managed to find only two bottles left.
Kind of amusuing, but kind of sad, too — especially if they end up losing power there. Which, I imagine, they will. At least the woman seems to be taking it with a smile.
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DAILY NEWS
Philadelphia, Pa.
Circulation: 110,000
Over the years, I’ve seen a number of papers taking an aggressive stance toward hurricanes. This sort of headline always worries me.
My nightmare scenario: You write something like this for page one. Readers laugh and then the storm hits. When the dust settles, you have massive damage and fatalities.
Don’t laugh. It can happen. If it happened to me, I’d feel awfully bad.
I hope the headline writers of the Daily News have nothing but good luck tonight.
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NEW YORK POST
New York, N.Y.
Circulation: 522,874
The New York Post combined an aerial photo with what for them is a relatively tame headline.
Given the evacuations ordered in NYC and the emotions that have run high, that was a good call on the part of the Post. It’s good to see the editors know when to take it down a notch or two.
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NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
New York, N.Y.
Circulation: 530,924
Meanwhile, the Daily News used a nice little hurricane flag motif on page one today.
My beef with this is a bit of an accuracy issue.
A single flag of this type signals the approach of a tropical storm. In order to signal the approach of a hurricane, you need two flags of this type, one atop the other.
Now, perhaps the Daily News is expecting Irene’s winds to drop below 74 mph before it reaches the metro area. But given the use of the word “Hurricane” in the page topper, I’m guessing that’s not the case.
It was a cute design motif. And perhaps it makes no major difference. But you need to think about things like this. It’s the difference in designing news presentation and decorating pages.
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NEWSDAY
Melville, N.Y.
Circulation: 298,759
Over on Long Island, Newsday ran a picture of folks on the boardwalk in Long Beach boarding up their place.
The picture by staffer J. Conrad Williams Jr. is quite nice. But the best thing about the page is the headline. It’s difficult to not get the message:
Get out
Now. Without delay. Seek shelter inland and away from the oceanfront.
Nicely done.
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BOSTON GLOBE
Boston, Mass.
Circulation: 219,214
And in Boston, the Globe also chose to lead with a photo from a weather satellite.
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With the exception of the Virginian-Pilot, these pages are all from the Newseum. Of course.
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Previous blog posts about Hurricane Irene…
- Wednesday: Like the Virginian-Pilot says… Our next big worry: Hurricane Irene
- Thursday: The latest on Hurricane Irene
- Friday: Our Hurricane Irene plan: Get the hell out of Dodge
- Friday: An ode to Hurricane Irene from the Raleigh, N.C., News & Observer
