Kudos Laurel Leader

Laurel Leader's Editor, Melanie Dzwonchyk, has continued her unflagging support of digital publishing to keep us informed during the storm.  Melanie has heroically filed online stories during the teeth of the storm proving that local journalism doesn’t need ink and paper to serve our community. 

The Leader has published early and online this week.  You can read the Leader’s latest snow story here.  Kudos to Melanie and her team at the Leader.

It's too bad the Leader’s publishers refuse to create a professional website for our much beloved Laurel Leader.  We are left with their absolutely horrible “explore howard dot com” website.  

The fact that the “explore howard dot com” loses the brand identity provided by the Laurel Leader is sad enough.  However, the technology that their site runs on must have been first deployed by Gutenberg himself.   There seems to be simply no commitment to digital publishing by this publisher. It appears to be only an afterthought and is certainly not being worked as an emerging profit center.

I understand that community newspapers are losing money.  But it's a damn shame that the people running Patuxent Publishing do not embrace the web and dedicate their time and energies to improving their digital editions.  If there is any way to stop hemorrhaging money, the tourniquet must be built from their digital product.

Community news is vitally important to every small town in America.  I have dozens of sources for national news.  There are thousands of reporters in DC covering the federal government.  But on a good day, we only have a precious few reporters like Gwendolyn Glenn and Melanie Dzwonchyk to tell us what is happening in our own back yard.  

Come on Patuxent Publishing please give us a real community news website for the Laurel Leader.  A website that lives at laurelleader.com and a website that carries a local brand and logo that we can identify with. 

 

The Calm Between the Storms

Cody and I are taking a break today.  Here we are at the Laurel Connections Crisis Operations Center, i.e., the LCCOC.  We are getting a bit of much needed rest between these historic and breathless snow storms.

Dogs and bloggers both need their rest after five days of tweeting, face booking, TV watching, emailing, non-stop eating, web surfing, aimless walking, photographing, general and specific malingering and the occasional nip of medicinal hooch.

Cody is keeping watch for she-who-must-be-obeyed (SWMBO).  If we sleep too soundly, SWMBO gets all excited and assumes that we kicked the bucket.  Cody's job is to make sure SWMBO doesn't haul us outside for special pick-up.  The DPW guys are much too busy clearing the streets to drag our large carcass away to the landfill.

We've also been adding new pictures to our LCCOC storm-of-the-century slide show.   

On an serious note, Council President Gayle Snyder emailed us this morning saying that Richard Kluckhuhn is concerned that his famous Christmas Tree may have been severely damaged by the February 6 storm. The Kluckhuhn family has brightened Laurel's Christmases for at least two generations with the lighted tree.  This picture shows some of the damage.  Let's hope that the tree can be saved for future generations.

Oh No ... More Snow!

Issued by The National Weather Service
Baltimore/Washington, MD
3:04 pm EST, Mon., Feb. 8, 2010

... WINTER STORM WARNING IN EFFECT FROM NOON TUESDAY TO 7 PM EST WEDNESDAY... 

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN STERLING VIRGINIA HAS ISSUED A WINTER STORM WARNING FOR... WHICH IS IN EFFECT FROM NOON TUESDAY TO 7 PM EST WEDNESDAY. THE WINTER STORM WATCH IS NO LONGER IN EFFECT. 

* PRECIPITATION TYPE... SNOW.

* ACCUMULATIONS... 10 TO 20 INCHES. 

* TIMING... MID-AFTERNOON TUESDAY THROUGH WEDNESDAY.

* TEMPERATURES... TEMPERATURES NEAR FREEZING AT THE ONSET TUESDAY AFTERNOON. TEMPERATURES WILL DROP INTO THE UPPER 20S TUESDAY NIGHT AND WEDNESDAY.

* WINDS... LIGHT SOUTHEASTERLY WINDS TUESDAY BECOMING NORTHWESTERLY 15 TO 25 MPH WEDNESDAY.

PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...

A few more pictures as the storm abates

Eric and I walked around this evening as the sun was setting.  Blue skies emerged for the briefest moment.

Tastee Diner and another business on Main street lost their window awnings to the snow.  Impressive drifts were found on roofs all over town.  


Tomorrow we start the big dig.

Slide show is found here.

UPDATE: Laurel Leader posts a snowstorm story.

Snow Stories

I took a walk around town this morning.  Here is the slide show with pictures  including last night's and this morning's shots.

I had a chance to talk to Laurel's Mayor, Craig Moe.  Hizzoner is out plowing in a small city truck.  He does a pretty good job, talking on the radio and clearing the LVFD station driveway at the same time.  Craig explained that the county will plow station 10, but that in a storm like this, everybody needs to step up to help.  He said it's important that the fire trucks and ambulance can get out of the station.

Marty Flemion and his team of senior staff members are at the City's Emergency Management Operations Center directing the city's response. Council President Gayle Snyder has been volunteering since early this morning answering phones at city hall.  Ed Ricks, a long-time city volunteer and former council member, has been up all night cooking for the city crews.  You may have seen Eddie and his helpers in the city's emergency canteen vehicle in the past.  Everybody in town is hard at work.

The city has been at work for a few days getting ready for this historic storm.  Every resource that the city has available is now engaged in the battle.  Crews are working around the clock.  The mayor told me that his first priority is responding to the storm and protecting the residents.  He and the city council will work together to find the money to pay for whatever we need to respond to this storm.  He said that is why we set aside financial reserves.

The biggest worry now is the loss of electricity.  According to the mayor, we have had a few limited outages.  But as the storm progresses and the wind increases, he is concerned that we may lose more trees.  Trees rip out the electric wires. 

Be sure to call BG&E if you lose power.  That is the only way they will know that your power is out.

Laurel is a unique place with so many wonderful people.  Jim McCeney has been clearing his neighbor's walks with his snow blower all morning.  I just heard that Jim's snow blower may have died before he cleared his own driveway.  City staff are working around the clock.  Neighbors are helping neighbors.  We are truly blessed.

Stay inside.  Stay out of your car.  Stay in touch.  Stay warm.