Gas leak? Never mind, news must come first
A lesson in why editors go grey: Police order to evacuate ignored



Ian Haysom
Global News Director
Special to the  
TimesColonist.com
Saturday, February 16, 2008


It started with a slight smell of gas in the newsroom. "Where's that coming from?" I asked. "Could be the refinery up the road," said a producer.

Okey-dokey, I said, and went back to my computer, double-checking the rundown for the 6 p.m. newscast, just minutes away. The smell of gas got stronger. Much stronger.

Then a camera operator walked in. "That smell," he said, "it's all over the place outside. There's got to be a big leak somewhere."

It was true, the smell was getting stronger. We started making calls, to the fire department, to the cops, to the gas company.

The police told us that there'd been reports of a gas leak in the area around our TV station and they were checking it out. Should we be worried? someone asked. No, looks fine, shouldn't worry, said the RCMP officer.

The smell started to become intense. Don't light a match, someone joked. Is natural gas poisonous? asked another (it isn't). It just blows up good.

Just before 6 p.m., a reporter checking on the story slammed down the phone. "They're shutting down Lougheed Highway, evacuating scores of homes and businesses, and they've shut down SkyTrain stations."

We started scrambling. We sent a crew and a microwave truck -- used for live reports -- to the nearest SkyTrain station, and began calling around frantically for more information. Our weatherman said, "News on our doorstep. How often does that happen? Wow, that smell's getting worse -- are we safe?"

We started our 6 p.m. news, leading with a couple of big stories, slotting the live-hit on the gas leak into the top segment. The fact of a mass evacuation was enough to merit breathless -- almost literally breathless -- play.

And then, at 6:05 my phone rang. "This is the RCMP," said the same officer we'd spoken to earlier. "Could you please evacuate your building immediately."

I gulped. "How can we do that? The News Hour has just started. Are you sure we have to evacuate? I can't just shut down the biggest newscast in the province. Not for a news story. Not unless this is real."

We'd ascertained by then that the leak was several blocks away, so I figured it would have to be a pretty spectacular explosion to harm us. The police officer hung up, saying she had to make more calls.

I asked our deskers to double-check the situation with fire officials, but then walked quickly around the building ordering anyone not involved in the production of the newscast to evacuate immediately.

And I told everyone else that we'd been ordered to evacuate but were double-checking the situation. Most just shrugged. No problem, they said. Our graphics department, which was doing the on-air graphics presentation, elected to leave. That's OK, I said, we can live without them. The weatherman couldn't show any wind warnings.

An interlude. Let's go back a few decades. To Fleet Street. I was working on the Evening Standard when IRA bombs started going off around London. One exploded at the Old Bailey, just up the street from our newspaper offices. Our windows had rattled. Other bombs were found at government offices and in cars.

I was putting together the main front page story for edition after edition of the newspaper -- with bulletins coming in from our reporters and various news agencies. One bulletin said The Daily Mirror offices just up the street had been evacuated because of a bomb threat.

A few minutes later, an agency bulletin came across my desk. The Evening Standard offices had also received a bomb threat. I handed the bulletin to the chief news editor, a grizzled Fleet Street veteran. He looked at the note, looked at me, screwed up the missive in a ball and tossed it into the nearest garbage can.

"I don't think we need to worry anyone about this silliness," he said. "We have a newspaper to get out." And he looked at me, his co-conspirator, for support. I looked around the busy newsroom, reporters and editors working like crazy on the next edition, and wondered briefly if we should warn them, and then looked back at the news editor and smiled. "The show must go on, I guess," I said.

The newspaper didn't blow up. And neither did our TV station.

At about 6:25, we got hold of the fire department, and they said we were fine. No need to evacuate.

Good show, said our anchor afterwards. With the added bonus that we're still all here. Yes, I smiled, having aged 10 years in an hour.

Ian Haysom is news director of Global News in British Columbia. He divides his week between Central Saanich and Vancouver.

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