ABILENE — A fire at the Abilene Reporter-News, located at 101 Cypress St., Thursday morning may have briefly slowed progress, but will not deter the news staff from putting out a newspaper.
In a telephone interview, despite the fire, ARN Editor Greg Jaklewicz said, "The news will go on."
A call to the Abilene Fire Department was received at 9:20 a.m., Jaklewicz said. The lights in the newsroom on the building's second floor were flickering, so he went downstairs to the advertising department to see if that was the case there, he said.
"Someone tapped at our entrance, and when I opened the door, they said, 'Did you know your building was on fire?'" Jaklewicz said. "Actually, at that point, I didn't."
The editor heard the fire trucks coming and went to the newspaper building's roof to find what appeared to be an electrical fire.
"There was sparking and the firefighters were up there with me a couple of minutes later." Jaklewicz said. "And eventually, they told me to get out of there."
The extent of the damage caused by fire, smoke and water at this point is unknown. There was a partial collapse of the room which houses the heating and cooling system for the building, as well as water pouring out of the ceiling in the area where vehicles are parked, possibly draining into the basement area, he said.
The power and gas to the newspaper building are currently shut off as damage is assessed, but the Reporter-News staff is back to work, having set up shop at the Old Grace Hotel, across the street. There is no estimate on when they will be able to return to their offices.
"We are still up and running on our website." Jaklewicz said. "And of course, we had to cover the fire, so now we're just organizing that."
The San Angelo Standard-Times staff was not affected by the fire, as they are still located at 34 W. Harris Ave., in San Angelo.
"There will be a newspaper printed for San Angelo and Abilene and it's probably going to be printed in Wichita Falls. They are in discussions now on how that will be, so I cannot tell you anything more on that."
Because of the distance, newspaper delivery may or may not be on time, "but the news will go on, and we will somehow assemble a paper for tomorrow. We've already done that." he said. "But that's our task, to get back to work."
