At what point do you begin to feel like vultures, a friend asked a member of our staff last week. They were discussing news coverage of the two Salisbury firefighters’ deaths.
My answer would be, whenever someone asks a question like that.
It had not occurred to me that someone might consider our stories and photos the work of vultures, and I don’t think that person was making an accusation ó yet. But as stories like this go, journalists often find themselves struggling to get information. And in our pushing and asking, we can seem overeager. Even insensitive.
We’ve spent a week walking on eggshells as we covered the Salisbury Millwork fire, the death of Justin Monroe and Victor Isler in that fire and all that comes with a firefighter’s death. We’ve made a few people mad along the way. But at the beginning of the week, we knew people in the community wanted to know more about the fire, the firefighters and their families. So did thousands of firefighters around the country. It was our responsibility to put together reports that were as complete as possible.
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I was hoping to sleep in a little on the morning of March 7, but our copy desk chief, Deirdre Parker Smith, called around 7:15 a.m. My first thought was that I must have messed something up in the paper the previous night.
But Deirdre was calling to say there was, at that point, a three-alarm fire at Salisbury Millwork. She had called photographer Jon Lakey, who was scheduled to be on duty that day. Managing Editor Frank DeLoache was taking a rare vacation day. Which reporter should she call? Mark Wineka, I said, knowing he was scheduled to work that night and that Shavonne Potts, the cops and fire reporter, was off.
By the time I got to the office, Mark and Jon were on the scene and the newsroom scanner was crackling. Firefighters sounded as though they had contained the fire in the office and basement part of the complex.
Then something happened. The voices on the scanner grew excited, and it became evident the fire had swept into the rest of the building.
I asked Steve Huffman to take our new video camera to the scene, even though he’d never used it. Steve agreed, and on our Web site you can see the footage that he took. At the time, Steve knew only that it was a huge fire. The worst news was yet to come.
Mark and Jon radioed in, saying they believed a firefighter had died. Several minutes later, they changed that to two.
I choked as I repeated the news to Linda Braswell, who was fielding calls from other media. We didn’t put the word out until officials confirmed it, but we all grew silent at the horrible knowledge. Two dead.
From that point on, covering this story became a mission.
Reporter Kathy Chaffin went to Rowan Regional, pulling together details from the emergency department waiting room ó in the very hospital where the mother of one of the victims worked, she learned.
Late that afternoon, Fire Chief Bob Parnell appeared before area media and announced the names of the deceased. It had to have been beyond his worst nightmare ó to face a roomful of TV cameras, reporters and photographers to announce that two of his rookies had died in a fire.
City Manager Dave Treme looked as grim as I’ve ever seen him. Mayor Susan Kluttz bore up, but clearly she was shaken and deeply saddened.
Back at the Post, Frank DeLoache turned his visit to check e-mail into an all-night assignment, volunteering to lay out and edit Area pages. Shavonne Potts came in and called firefighters. We called in more people who were scheduled to be off. Reporter Jessie Burchette worked the phones, too, calling on her immense store of contacts in the county. Graphic artist Andy Mooney created a map of the area.
Jon Lakey and Wayne Hinshaw were putting final touches on photos and ó without prompting from anyone ó creating a slide show of Jon’s photos and Wayne’s audio from the press conference.
I was there to coordinate assignments, edit stories and check final pages.
At the calm center of the storm were Mark Wineka, putting together the main story, and copy editor Paris Goodnight, laying out the pages. Paris wrote the front-page headline, “A city in mourning.”
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Later, I looked at the notes Deirdre had jotted down Friday morning as she listened to the scanner, took calls from our crew, wrote a story and updated our Web site.
“Staging on Julian Road … 4 alarm … 5th alarm … cut thru roof to vent … Kannapolis cover CG & Landis … contained 7:52 – but still in basement … all ready orders … Locke w b released … firefighter went back to scene … 1 died here doing CPR when he arrived.”
The fire was just the beginning of what would be an emotion-packed week. It culminated in an over-the-top funeral ceremony that we covered as closely as the fire itself. If that seems over-the-top, too, it should. Salisbury has never seen a tragedy like this, and we hope never to again.
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Elizabeth Cook is editor of the Salisbury Post.