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January 18, 2007
Trains, buses, cars and falling trees
Two things absolutely vital to producing a newspapers are reporters and sub editors.
You may think that is stating the blooming obvious but when the weather strikes and at the same time storm stories are breaking across the borough it's a problem when the majority of your staff are all stuck on the underground.
That was exactly the case this morning when a tree came down and struck a train close to Hillingdon station and closed all lines in and out of Uxbridge.
Stranded at Ruislip station were half the reporting team and a posse of subs - desperately needed to help finish our sister title the Ealing Gazette, which has a deadline this morning.
The Uxbridge reporters that managed to beat the train, bus and traffic chaos that ensued did a great job in getting the train drama story up on the site within minutes of it breaking - showing the true value of the website when it comes to breaking news. And our photographers were quickly out of their blocks to capture the drama as it unfolded.
Thanks to a vigilant member of our advertising team the rest of the reporters were rescued from Rusilip station by car and the members of the subbing team eventually got here by any means they could.
All in all it's been a frantic morning at Gazette House and with the wind still howling it looks like that might continue for the rest of the day as reports of storm damage continue to flood in to the newsroom.
Posted by aseal at January 18, 2007 1:26 PM