Community newspaper provides excellent coverage of nationally significant disaster

Employees at a daily newspaper in northwest Washington are showing the true spirit of a community paper, working long hours to keep residents in the Mt. Vernon area up to speed on a local disaster -- a section of the Interstate 5 bridge over the Skagit River collapsed -- that has affected everyone who lives and works nearby. (Herald photo by Frank Varga)

The Skagit Valley Herald has done a tremendous job reporting about the incident, seemingly providing readers with everything they might want or need to know, including in-depth news stories, first-person accounts, human interest stories, information on detours around the bridge, what the local government is doing to restore order, costs to restore the bridge, and plenty of photos. To cover the event, hourly employees put in 55 hours of overtime in four days, editor Colette Weeks told Jim Romensko for his news-media blog. As a result of the increased coverage, circulation went up 170 percent the day after the tragedy, and website traffic was up 844 percent. (Read more)

(Varga photo: Man awaits rescue)

No one died in the collapse of the 1,111-foot-long bridge between Burlington and Mount Vernon, though two vehicles were thrown into the water and three people had to be rescued. It it expected to cost about $15 million to fix the bridge, and the federal government has promised $1 million to help, the Herald reports. To read stories and view photos of the Herald's coverage, click here.