After the Storm

By Kelly Carr
October 8, 2008 07:46 PM

Laura Elder’s hiking boots crunched on broken glass and squished under a knee-high river of brown, cloudy water. With her left hand, she gripped a notebook close to her chest. With her brain, she fought to process the new landscape of Galveston: semi-tractor trailers and shrimp boats sprinkled throughout downtown; dirty water swallowing coffee shops, restaurants and retail shops she had covered as a business reporter for the last eight years.

Before Elder ventured on to Postoffice Street in Galveston’s commercial district, she was sure she could make the 30-block walk to her desk at the city’s newspaper, The Daily News. But with the water so high from the wrath of Hurricane Ike the night before, she soon realized it would be difficult, but for this determined reporter not impossible.

Focused and steady, Elder waded through the businesses she knew so well, charting details of what was left. She searched for people to interview and tapped residents from her lengthy source list.

Even after the hurricane’s force sent water six feet high in her condo building and stripped away the power to her computer, it never crossed Elder’s mind that she wouldn’t have a story for the next day’s edition of The Daily News. After all, her paper is the oldest in Texas, and it has only missed one edition and that was during the Civil War. She knew it was her job as the area’s business reporter to provide a lifeline for the residents of Galveston by continuing to deliver the news. The residents were already calling out to her as she maneuvered through the water, “Where’s my newspaper?” So with the little battery juice left on her cell phone, Elder called into the paper to dictate the day’s story.

“There was so much destruction, every business I had ever known. Nothing was untouched,” Elder said. “I knew I had a huge responsibility…I felt like this would be the story of the year. This is what I would be doing for months to come.”

Elder took a job at The Daily News almost a decade ago to work on the paper’s business desk. It was a move that allowed her to reach her dream of reporting for a daily newspaper and continue on the business beat, an area she had grown to love while working at the Houston Business Journal. In Galveston, she’s known as the type of reporter who believes business journalism “is about the people, not just the numbers.” She stays on the streets, meeting sources for coffee or stopping by local businesses to keep in the know. Her dedicated reporting and interaction with the community’s residents gave her an edge when the hurricane rolled through the region.

“People tend to think that ‘recovery’ refers to repaired electrical lines or water systems,” said Heber Taylor, editor of The Daily News. “Actually, it has a lot more to do with when the store that sells bottled water, ice and gasoline in your neighborhood will open, and whether your employers will be able to keep all its workers on the payroll. It has a lot to do with how apartment complexes deal with tenants and how insurance companies handle claims. You want someone with real ability telling those kinds of stories, and Laura has been that person for us.”

The day before Hurricane Ike hit Galveston Elder was reporting on residents who did not evacuate. The last story she filed that night was on a restaurant called The Spot, which was serving drinks to residents who refused to leave, a last source of life in what had become a ghost town. That night, as the wind and rain smashed against her condo, she blogged for the paper’s site for as long as she had power. The next morning, when she headed out into Galveston’s water-filled streets to tell the stories of the devastated commercial district, her sources—connections she had worked to build for eight years—helped to guide her.

“I couldn’t have done it if I didn’t know who people were and how to get in touch with them,” Elder said. “There was so much chaos but people would take out time and talk to me. That wouldn’t have worked without the contact we made before. You have to take the time to get out there and build sources.”

When Elder finally made it to the building that’s home to The Daily News, part of the roof had been blown off. But reporters and editors, even some who had lost their homes in the hurricane, were tirelessly filing stories for the next edition of the paper. A photographer even climbed onto the roof searching for a signal so she could send her images, and Elder along with other reporters set up shop in a conference room until the flooding around their desks dissipated.

The hurricane struck last month, but still, everything is different. The newspaper’s power finally returned just about two weeks ago. And now Elder has the immense challenge of covering business in a community where an economy must be rebuilt.

She says insurance stories will be a big focus in the months to come, along with FEMA efforts and the lack of tourism revenue. In addition to her regular coverage, Elder writes two columns a week and also has her own blog. But she’s fine with this intense workload. There is nothing she’d rather be doing. The hurricane, she said, taught her that lesson.

“Everyone was getting down about the industry. There had been a lot of layoffs at papers. Money is tight. The economy is hard. You felt like no one was reading newspapers,” Elder said. “Now I feel relevant again. This made me want to go back and work harder. I have a fresh sense of responsibility; the storm cemented that for me.”

*Photo: Galveston County Daily News business reporter Laura Elder interviews the owner of a 1870s-era downtown building on Galveston's historic Strand on Sept. 13, 2008, a few hours after Hurricane Ike passed over the island. The building took in about eight feet of water. Photos by Michael A. Smith/The Daily News

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Copyright © 2008 Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism