Digital Extra: The Journal's 175th Anniversary

07.21.2004

Call, Post rescue Journal after hurricane floods new building

The competition bailed out The Journal after the Hurricane of 1938 flooded The Journal's new building in downtown Providence and knocked out electricity in the city.

In the days after the disaster, the paper carried this message:

"This issue of The Providence Journal is printed on the presses of The Woonsocket Call which has made this service available to the people of the State of Rhode Island in accordance with an established newspaper tradition.

"The presses of the Providence Journal cannot operate until electric power service is restored to the City of Providence.

"The Providence Journal expresses its deep appreciation for the courtesy and cooperation of the Woonsocket Call."

In a front-page message of thanks, Oct. 4, 1938, The Journal wrote of the responsibility of the press in a disaster:

"When the widespread devastation of hurricane and tidal wave disrupted power and telephone lines and radio service, the maintenance of some medium of communication was a vital necessity to our stricken State. Only thus could military orders, health instructions, casualty lists and news of disaster conditions be made available to the people in the stricken areas.

"It is the duty of the press under such conditions to continue publication if it is humanly possible.

"The newspaper must suspend its normal function and become an emergency service to the people of its community. This is a deep-rooted tradition with the American press . . ."

The Journal published without interruption through the disaster, borrowing the equipment of the Boston Post and the Call, which "in the finest traditions of American journalism, courteously made available their facilities to a fellow in distress."