I'm beginning to think this blog is turning into the Weather Channel.

Remember how I told you about publishers like me worry about impending storms and the loss of electrical power? This is another one of those days, with lots of "possible severe thunderstorms" in the forecast, so I'm keeping my fingers cross.

Meanwhile, just to point out how you can get wet even if it doesn't rain on your parade, I spent a good part of the early afternoon on a weather-related conference call with our corporate people and my publisher colleagues from The Saratogian and Troy Record. It seems Troy was hit by a city-wide power outage late this morning. Initial estimates were that it could be 12 to 14 hours until power was restored.

While the Troy people tried to secure generators to get their computers up and running, the "We're going to print the papers in Kingston" emergency plan was dusted off and put into effect. (The Saratogian never lost power, but it prints on Troy's presses.)

Given that our presses tonight are not only printing the Freeman, but a local weekly (The Catskill Mountain News), as well as our "Getting Around" tabloid, the prospect of adding The Saratogian and Troy Record to the mix wasn't exactly eagerly anticipated by us. On the other hand, if we were in a similar bind, Troy would print the Freeman.

So in the spirit of teamwork, our production crew, led by Bill Studt and Dave Hyatt, was ready to bite the bullet. In addition, we were prepared to cut our normal three editions to one to make our press run end sooner, thus clearing the decks for our Capital District sister publications.

The good news for everyone, particularly the people in sweltering Troy, is that the power came back on, at least in the Record's part of the city, before 4 p.m. The emergency plan goes back into the file cabinet until next time.