By the time Hurricane Milton caused a construction crane to crash onto the building that houses The Tampa Bay Times late on Wednesday, the newsroom’s journalists had already evacuated, fanning out across the region to cover the storm.
“Most people have been working around the clock, up all night,” said Mark Katches, the editor of The Tampa Bay Times, calling from a suburban hotel that a handful of editors were using as a makeshift newsroom.
“We’ve got people dispersed in safe locations across the state,” Mr. Katches said. “Some people even left the state. Many people on our staff have lost power or internet, but somehow we’re managing to produce pretty impressive public service journalism.”
He said no one from the news organization had re-entered the building to examine the condition of the newsroom.
Milton, which made landfall close to the nearby community of Siesta Key, Fla., on Wednesday, is the second hurricane that the 80-person staff of The Tampa Bay Times has had to cover in the last month. Hurricane Helene drenched Florida’s Gulf Coast in late September, leaving parts of the region swamped with floodwater and without access to basic utilities.
It has been a challenging time for the newspaper, which has won 14 Pulitzer Prizes and is known for its hard-hitting investigations into prominent local and state institutions. In August, the newspaper announced that it was reducing its staff by 20 percent through buyouts because of the economic challenges faced by many local news publications.
Although the buyouts took a toll on employee morale, Mr. Katches said that the company’s journalists had rallied to provide strong coverage of the storms. All of the publication’s coverage is getting published online only for now; Wednesday’s print edition was not delivered because of the storm.
Mr. Katches said the newspaper’s coverage on Thursday would focus on assessing the damage from Hurricane Milton. The storm destroyed the roof of nearby Tropicana Field, home to the Tampa Bay Rays professional baseball team, and collapsed houses across the region.
As of Thursday morning, Mr. Katches said, some employees for the newspaper were still unaware of the conditions of their own homes.
“It’s not like you just have a story that’s important to cover. Your lives are on the line and your family’s lives are on the line, and you’ve got to take care,” Mr. Katches said. “Everyone here is here because it’s a calling for them.”
The company’s journalists are spread out in “go teams” that include reporters and photographers in rented S.U.V.s. They’re sending in their articles, videos and images using mobile hot spots.
On Thursday morning, the handful of editors with Mr. Katches were fielding that coverage with limited electricity in the hotel.
“We’re using cigarette lighters and going in shifts into our cars to charge laptops,” Mr. Katches said. “That’s what we’re doing until they turn the lights back on.”
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