Water, Water Nowhere   

Not only did the 60-car CSX freight train derailment and tunnel fire in July stall downtown Baltimore business operations--and cause the Orioles to reschedule three baseball games--but it caused a water main break that shut off the water supply to Sun Park, the Baltimore Sun's production facility.

"It takes water to run the presses, which I didn't know until that very night," says Managing Editor Tony Barbieri.

If that wasn't bad enough, the Sun printers couldn't get to the printing plant, says Barbieri, as the police had closed off access to the city. He had no choice but to pick up the phone and call Mayor Martin O'Malley, a politician who's been criticized in the newspaper's editorial pages, and ask him for a favor--to let the press operators into the city.

"It's your worst nightmare," says Barbieri, "the biggest news day of the year and you can't even put a paper out."

Within an hour of Barbieri's talking to the mayor and George Winfield, the director of public works, police had lifted the barricade, allowing the printers into Baltimore, and water began to trickle into the plant.

Barbieri says that calling the mayor made him uncomfortable. "But rule one is to get the paper out. You do what it takes."

Tony White, O'Malley's press secretary, says the mayor was trying to be as helpful as he could, regardless of whether the Sun portrays him in a negative light.

"I never even called him back to thank him," Barbieri says. "I ought to."