Kevin Wendt, news design director at the San Jose Mercury News, is down in Columbus, Ga., helping the good folks there publish the Biloxi Sun Herald. He was nice enough to send along this remarkable report of what the last few days have been like.

First off, there truly are no words for what this experience is like. The fact of the matter is, I'm going back to San Jose at some point. My apartment awaits. My phone works. I'm on the Internet. I've talked to family members, and we're way, way, way far away from coast. But the four Biloxi Sun Herald folks here are just finding out how their families have fared and all still have no idea if they have a house to go home to. The Biloxi Sun Herald is still looking for unaccounted-for staffers to check in down in Biloxi. The entire situation is a definition of "disaster" I've never been this close to, and to be honest, hope no one ever has to go through.

On Sunday, I got a call that Knight Ridder wanted to get a group of folks to the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer -- about 5 hours from Biloxi on a normal day, 7-10 hours on Sunday -- to publish the Biloxi Sun Herald in case it wasn't able to publish from Biloxi. I was in Chicago for the weekend, and decided it was the right thing to do. Quite frankly, there were a lot of reasons I thought about not coming. But the argument that won out was, basically, if I'm ever at a paper in a natural disaster, I'd like to know someone would come help, too. At this point, that reason feels weak, and it doesn't begin to touch on the emotion experienced by what we're attempting to do. It's indescribable.

The base group pretty much arrived Sunday night/Monday morning. I flew into Atlanta, drove to Columbus (about a 2-hour drive) and got to the hotel about 2:15 a.m. Some got in earlier, some later. We all were at the paper at 9:30 a.m.

We watched the hurricane coverage. Biloxi had put out their Monday paper at 2 p.m. Sunday. The decision was made that we would put out the Tuesday paper as a p.m., to ensure we had some news other than "hurricane hits" to report.

So, Monday afternoon was basically spent learning the Columbus paper's system. They're on DTI. Biloxi is on a slightly different version of DTI. I didn't even know what DTI stood for (I still don't, and my ability to maneuver the system is, shall we say, limited). Because of technical issues, we are using the Columbus paper's typography (Benton and Caslon), desk flow system, photo staff, pizza budget -- everything.

We watched hurricane coverage and got about 4-5 pages ready for print Monday night. We left about 11:30-12:30 (at this point, all times are a blur. The whole week is a blur). We came back between 4-4:30 a.m. and worked until 9 a.m. to get the paper on the presses at 9:30 a.m.

The paper was trucked down by Columbus by a fearless driver, and arrived I believe around 3 or 4 p.m. Like I said, it's a blur. After seeing the first part of the run, we headed back to the hotel around 11-11:30 a.m., got a quick nap, and came back around 2:30 to put out the Wednesday paper.

Now, I believe in going big. But the 24 open pages we were talking about when we got back to the paper was about as ambitious as anything I've ever heard. The only contact out of Biloxi was a satellite phone. No cells. No Internet. Sporadic electricity. How would we get any local stories? (Hopefully, the tale of the folks in Biloxi is being told. They're doing work that is hard to even imagine, in conditions that are even more unbelievable).

The night was as difficult as we thought. At about 3:30 Tuesday, the decision was made in Biloxi to stop reporting and photographing for Wednesday's paper. All stories would be written ASAP, photos would be downloaded, and all would be burned to a disk and taken anywhere -- ANYWHERE -- with Internet access. My understanding is the driver who delivered the papers was given the disk and told to get to Mobile, Alabama, where the paper there would transmit everything. I don't know all the details here, but gas was an issue, directions were and issue, and things were in limbo. At 8 p.m. in Columbus, we had received nothing from Biloxi.

To make what's becoming a long story short, the disk was delivered, and some sporadic Internet access or transmitting power was found, and we received many things starting about 8:30 - 9 p.m. Remember: 24 open pages. We're hoping for KR photos. KR stories. Local, local, local.

In the end, we made a miraculous recovery that you can see in the 24 pages posted at newspagedesigner. I'd go into any big story with the folks I've met from Biloxi -- so short is the time I can only think of first names: Blake (Kaplan? Asst. City Editor); Jarred (sp?) Head, on 1A; Paul on the wires; Rudy on graphics/pages. Not to mention Randy Waters from Macon, Georgia and the entire Columbus Ledger Enquirer staff, which has been nothing short of spectacular in their determination to help us get the Biloxi paper out.

We pulled out another 24-page section tonight, which I hope to post mid-day tomorrow (Thursday). Tonight we had folks from Biloxi, Columbus, San Jose, Miami and Wichita helping. And we're looking for more. Word around the campfire is we could be publishing from here and shipping to Biloxi for another two weeks.

To end this far-too-long late-night rambling, the sleep is thin, the worn-out thick, but the experience something that will take years to fully comprehend. It's just flat amazing.

kevin