Thank you to staff, readers for patience

This last week has turned a lot of our normal routines into chaos.

Winter weather in Southeast Missouri tends to do that. (I know all of you ‘northerners’ scoff at a little snow and sleet, but we’re more prepared for the chance of tornadoes and flash flooding because that’s what we tend to deal with.)

A lot of people have stepped up this week to make sure life happened, whether it was helping out with childcare with schools closed, picking up groceries for an elderly neighbor who couldn’t get out, or taking on extra duties for a co-worker who couldn’t make it into work.

That’s been the case at the Daily American Republic this week as well.

We had a lot of people who live in rural areas who couldn’t make it in for some days, and others who had to work from home.

We also had a lot of weather-related coverage that meant sending news staff out into the bitter colder.

Our newest addition, Elizabeth Coady, came here from Chicago. She thought she was going to enjoy milder winters here, but her second week on the job proved that wrong. She was out with city road crews at 6:30 a.m. Monday, with sub-zero wind chills, while a lot of us were still warm at home.

Paul Davis was out a week ago Friday night, covering a breaking news story on icy roads, and was out pretty much every day this week gathering photos and news.

Bill Allen, who does video and stories for the DAR, also braved the elements to help get content.

Because of the weather hazards, all of our staff have worked this week under earlier print deadlines. On some days, that meant getting the paper together as much as 12 hours earlier than normal.

The goal was to give our drivers, led by longtime DAR staff member Tony Harwell, as much time as possible, to make their deliveries safely. The DAR drivers normally do a lot of work while the rest of us are asleep, so this was a big schedule shift for them.

We want to thank our readers for their patience this week as we did our best to deliver as much content as we could, and get print editions out to as many homes as we could.

If you were someone who did not get your normal delivery at your normal time, we especially thank you for your patience.

During severe weather days, our electronic editions were made free access. We hope this helped.

We also routinely make severe weather content on our website free access, along with other news we gather that relates to public safety matters.

We hope that everyone stays safe for the remainder of the time our winter weather hangs around. We know the melting and continued low temperatures over the weekend bring dangers of black ice.

Please listen to your local officials about the road dangers, and be careful out there.

As our publisher Chris Pruett (a former ‘northerner’ who shoveled his way out every day) says often, thank you for reading the Daily American Republic.

Donna Farley is the editor of the Daily American Republic and can be reached at dfarley.dar@gmail.com.