Crane slams into Tampa Bay Times
One of the most dramatic scenes from Hurricane Milton plowing across the state of Florida came Wednesday night when the fabric roof of Tropicana Field, home of the Tampa Bay Rays Major League Baseball team, was torn to shreds by winds that approached 100 mph.
As of Thursday morning, it was believed The Trop, as it is called, didn’t suffer any major structural damage, but the domed stadium had suddenly become, for the moment, an open-air facility.
Meanwhile, down the street about nine blocks or so, another dramatic scene was playing out. The Poynter-owned Tampa Bay Times had a scary call when a crane slammed into the side of the building that houses its newsroom, as well as other businesses. The crane was in place to build a 46-story highrise that will house mostly condos and will be located across the street from the Times.
Local authorities reported no injuries.
Times executive editor Mark Katches said Thursday morning that no Times employees were in the building at the time.
“We never are during storms,” Katches said in an email.
Katches said that the Times used to set up a command center at the paper’s printing plant a few miles away from newsroom offices during hurricane coverage, but that building was sold and the Times moved out in March 2021.
“So now we all work remotely in as safe a situation as we can find,” Katches said. “Much of our staff left the area, unless they were in nonevacuation zones.”
A core editing team, including Katches, was in Wesley Chapel, Florida — about 40 miles from St. Petersburg, but still within the Times’ coverage area.
Katches said, “And of course we have 5 mobilized ‘go teams’ in the field (reporters and photographers in rented SUVs who are trained for these kinds of conditions) At one point we had about a third of our newsroom without power or internet (Wednesday) night and (Thursday) morning, but we're managing to do some really important public service journalism.”
It is still too early to assess the damage to the building and determine when Times can go back to work there. The building also is home to several other businesses.
The Times’ Zachary T. Sampson and Chris Urso wrote that the building had a “gaping hole.”
They reported that the eight-story, 250,000-square-foot space at 490 First Avenue South in downtown St. Petersburg actually is made up of three buildings — built in 1924, 1968 and 1988. All three are joined together. Times Publishing Co., the parent of the Tampa Bay Times, sold the building in 2016 to a joint venture of Convergent Capital Partners and Denholtz Associates, but remained a tenant.
Sampson and Urso wrote, “The city said in a news release that no injuries have been reported at the site. The building damaged by the crane had closed ahead of Milton’s arrival Wednesday. No one from the Times’ newsroom was working inside when the crane collapsed.”
They added, “Mayor Ken Welch on Tuesday urged residents who live in buildings next to three construction sites in downtown St. Petersburg … to relocate or take other precautions because of safety concerns with the neighboring high-rise cranes.”
Local coverage
I mentioned this in Thursday’s newsletter, and the same holds true for today. Nothing beats local news coverage when it comes to getting the very latest information that local residents need to know in the aftermath of a storm. Things like power and water outages, road closures, availability of gas, airport openings, emergency services and, unfortunately for many, what to do if your house is uninhabitable.
Local TV stations in the Tampa Bay area and the Tampa Bay Times have been my go-to sources while in our Dothan, Alabama, hotel. The coverage has been excellent, with the focus on the minute-to-minute information that residents need to begin rebuilding their lives.
More hurricane coverage of note …
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