Progress in St. Tammany Parish

Wednesday, September 14, 2005

An open letter to CEO John Mathew from Slidell Sentry-News publisher Terry Maddox.

John,

Just a note to tell you we continue to make tremendousprogress.

We published our third edition today, 12 pages packed withinformative and entertaining reading. We even had a good bit of advertising.

I can’t say enough about our dedicated employees and thewonderful job they’re doing. Many have lost their homes, are still looking forloved ones, and yet they’re on board helping us put out a product that is vitalto the restoration of St. Tammany Parish. They amaze me. We are blessed.

Today as I delivered bundles of papers to the Red Crossemergency vehicles which deliver hot meals to numerous shelters around theparish, drivers and their assistants told me that the folks they serve, given achoice, would rather have the newspaper than the hot meals.

As I also delivered papers to the parish government complex andemergency operations center, individuals over and over said, “A newspaper! Thankyou so much.” When I delivered one to parish president Kevin Davis, he said,“Terry, you don’t know how much this means to the citizens of St. TammanyParish. Thank you. And please keep up the good work.” And, when I handed a paperto the St. Tammany Economic Development Foundation Executive Director, she said,“No, thank you. I got one at my house.” What a credit to our distributionpeople. And she lives in Slidell, the hardest hit area in the parish.

Parish President Davis met with President George Bush on Monday,and the president hand wrote a message to our citizenry which read, “To thecitizens of St. Tammany Parish: My prayers are with you. We are going help you.”We scanned the message and it appeared on page one of today’s edition.

Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco also attended the meeting andDavis told she and the president that if they will get us the tools, suppliesand services we need to get St. Tammany back up and running full strength, thatwe will then go into New Orleans and help them do the same.

Our “construction” trailer arrived today and we already havepower run to it. We’re still waiting on a plumber to tap into water services,but will make do until that happens. Getting these types of services is a realchallenge because of demand. But we will get it done, and real soon. The trailerwill be a big help to us to house employees, and more and more show up each dayand are filling the offices of the News Banner.

The parish has lifted the “Do Not Return” request for those whohave evacuated, and more and more people are returning each day.

The PN Call Center is up and running, but our main need here isphones. We expect them soon. Call center manager Debbie Simmons told me todaythat one our our employees took an ad from a customer who said he called theTimes-Picayune to place a classified ad and they told him they were notaccepting any. He then placed his ad in all four of our papers. I’m sure he, andmany others will becomes permanent advertisers with us because of this.

Thanks to the good folks at Boone Newspapers and particularlythose at the Natchez Democrat for printing us. They have been very kind,courteous, and understanding. We have not been able to adhere to Wick’s (and Ithink
Boone’s) Number One Publishing Commandment - Thou shalt be on time,every time - but, believe me, it’s mainly been because of telecommunicationsfailures.

Cleco now has power to 66% of its customers, and Washington-St.Tammany Electric to 55% of theirs. All municipalities have water that is safe todrink. Rural areas, and a few places in the municipalities are exceptions.

We have a wonderful doctor at the emergency operations centerthat is inoculating our employees with tetanus, Hepatitis A & B, and B-12shots. She is a godsend.

I met today with an insurance adjuster in Slidell, who has alsobeen to Covington and Bogalusa, and everything has been put into motion for thecomplete recovery of each plant. We also have companies lined up for some of thecleanup work and are contacting contractors for reconstruction once that iscompleted.

I hate to be negative, and we have not been in our editorials,but we are very disappointed in FEMA and our lack of telecommunications. FEMA isasking that our residents access them at a 1-800 number or via theInternet.
And most of our citizens do not have telephones nor Internetservice. And telecommunications were nil to begin with and have beenintermittent since at best. We will address that later in editorials but as ofright now we want them to be upbeat and uplifting to our readers.

John, we all want to thank the publishers and employees of oursister Wick papers throughout the country. Their donations to the company relieffund are enormously appreciated, as our their e-mails of encouragement and otheracts of kindness. And for the company to match their donations is justunbelievable due to the fact that it’s taking a hit from our lack of revenue.

God bless you all.

Terry Maddox, publisher
Slidell Sentry-News