2012 was a year to forget

In many ways, 2012 is a year we would like to forget.
It was a year of too much horror and heartache, a year that saw the legends of a generation pass and that left us reeling with questions about random violence rocking our sense of security.
Not since 2001 and the terror of 9/11 have we felt so hopelessly victimized as we did twice in 2012.
The world didn't come to an end on Dec. 21, as the Mayans predicted.
Instead it came to an end a week earlier on Dec. 14 for 26 families who lost their children in the Sandy Hook School in Newtown, Conn.
The massacre was the second mass shooting of horrendous proportion, coming five months after a deranged lone gunman killed 12 people and injured dozens at a Colorado movie premiere.
We saw the venerable educational institution of Penn State University rocked by scandal that began in 2011, resulting in 2012 in the trial of former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky on charges of sexally abusing and raping young boys.
Again, the horror in headlines. 
The scandal included a sad chapter, as legendary Coach Joe Paterno died of cancer early in the year.
JoePa, Whitney Houston, Nora Ephron, Etta James, Dick Clark -- all legends to different groups for different reasons -- all giants in someone's world, now gone.
Hurricane Sandy wreaked havoc on New York City and the Jersey shore, leaving in its wake death and destruction, forever altering shore towns that for many held their fondest memories of summers gone by.
Part of the sadness of 2012 is that the things destroyed were the very things we held dear in our hearts  -- a Jersey shore memory, a first grade class, a night at the movies.
I am a Penn State alum so I add the happiness of Nittany Valley to that list.
In the December buildup to the Mayan calendar tale, there was a lot of talk that it didn't mean the end of the world, it meant a change in the world.
2012 was a year that turned upside-down many things we believed were stable and safe.
In so doing, many of our fears were laid bare.
As we head toward 2013, the hope is that we have a place to start.
Perhaps the awful events of 2012 were a way to turn the directions of violence and hatred in a different direction.
A local leader who I respect said to me recently: "All our agendas have been exposed. Maybe that's the first step to figuring out how to change society and make it truly about goodwill toward others."
That seems at least a way to look at the year past beyond just regret.

From Agnes to Sandy: How we cover a hurricane

Our staff at a news site in Pottstown where the Philly suburbs complete their turn to rural Pennsylvania rarely covers a hurricane. We have our share of flooding on the Schuylkill River and large creeks -- Perkiomen, Manatawny, French Creek  -- and sometimes the effects of hurricanes have been involved.
Last year, Irene caused some evacuations and flooding of the Perkiomen at Collegeville and Graterford. We had some Floyd-aftermath flooding in 1999, and I remember writing headlines about the approach of Gloria some years back.
But for full-fledged hurricane reporting, we have to go back 40 years to Hurricane Agnes.
Until this week and Sandy.
Like Agnes in June, 1972, Sandy set her sights on New York and New Jersey, and slammed Pennsylvania in-between with gale-force winds and drenching rain.
The AP reported winds reached 81 miles per hour in Allentown; Hanover, Pa. got 8.15 inches of rain.
Twelve deaths were reported in Pennsylvania, several of them from carbon monoxide poisoning from generators.
In our area, a 62-year-old man was killed when a tree crashed through his porch roof while he was taking the dogs out.
The biggest difference between reporting a hurricane and reporting some after-effects like flooding is the breadth of the storm and the dangers to ourselves.
When I send reporters over to South Pottstown to report on damage to the homes along the Schuylkill River, I tell them to wear boots, protect cameras and stay out of deep water.
But on Monday with Sandy "looming large," the warnings were more stern. We put a plan in place to keep paginators and online producers at home, as long as their power lasted. We bought car chargers for laptops; put fresh batteries in flashlights; kept cell phones fully charged.

Reporters and photographers and two editors were in the office, coordinating coverage. We planned a front page by phone, brainstormed headlines like we always do, but in phone and email instead of in person. We kept website, Facebook, Twitter and mobile sites up to date.
By 8 p.m. Monday night, we closed up at the offices and drove home just as the wind speeds were picking up. Two people were on alert to go out overnight if they got word of a water rescue, fire or building collapse. The message was: Don't go out for flooding or wind damage. That can wait until daybreak. Don't risk going out in this wind unless it's a disaster that demands immediate reporting.
By Tuesday, many of us had lost power in our homes, but The Mercury did not. Neither did the offices of our sister sites in the Philly cluster, except Montgomery Media and a portion of the Delco Daily Times building.
To be sure, not all systems were working perfectly due to the devastation Sandy caused around us, in New York City and the Jersey shore. But for the most part, we could work.
The greatest damage here were giant trees uprooted, wires down and limbs everywhere. Fortunately, none of our staffers suffered damage to their homes except for some damaged gutters and broken tree limbs. The inconvenience of losing cable or Internet or lights and TV is minor compared to what we witnessed at the beach and in New York City.
Ironically, Sandy stormed our way the year of the 40th anniversary of Agnes and a recap of that coverage. There was no comparison to the devastation caused by Agnes, but the approach was the same.
When we pulled out the old Agnes papers for research last summer, we noticed there were no bylines in those editions, just a box that said everyone on staff contributed to everything they produced.
That's how The Mercury covered a hurricane 40 years ago.
With a bit of sarcasm and some silliness, our staffers like to say "there's no I in team." (I won't repeat the second half of their slogan about three "u"s.) 
That's how we covered Sandy, and why it was different than a normal storm. 
The bylines don't matter in a hurricane; the team effort does.