By Matthew McCully
The pole you see here joins a very short list of catastrophes over the last 126 years that stopped The Record from being able to publish.
We missed one day of publishing during the great Valentine’s Day blizzard of 2007 when no one could go anywhere or do anything.
We also missed one day during the ice storm in January of 1998.
And there was, of course, the fire in January of 1999, coincidentally this exact same time of year, when the office was destroyed, but three days later the paper was back up and running.
More recently, there was the time we did a tech upgrade and our computer-to-plate machine malfunctioned, causing us to lose a day.
And there have been many days when the press broke down or there were other technical issues, but luckily there were backup printers able to lend a hand, so behind the scenes we struggled, but still managed to get a paper printed.
So, what was it this time?
A simple power outage, affecting just 135 customers along Winder Street in Lennoxville, including The Record.
At 2:56 p.m. Wednesday the office went dark, and not only did it render the press powerless, all the content needed to build Thursday’s Record was also inaccessible.
We waited patiently for five hours when we learned that repairing the damaged pole was a much bigger job than anticipated and no one could confidently give an estimate of when power would be restored. So, we made the difficult decision to throw in the towel for the night.
Thanks a lot, pole, for the humbling reminder that we are reliant on a precarious network of cables as the cold of winter sets in.
Looking at it, though, I can’t help thinking, did they try duct tape?
