Power outage, Uppland Arbederblad | When the power went out, Tor Arne had to work from the bus

At 2.45pm on Monday, nearly 800 electricity customers were without power in downtown Giovik.

Telegrafen, where Oppland Arbeiderblad is based, as well as Gjøvik og omegn boligbyggelag (GOBB) and Partners Eiendomsmegling, were among the buildings completely blacked out.

– My first thought was that we should communicate via phones, but then 4G didn’t work either, says news editor Erik Börsen in Opland Arbederblad.

When the power went out, the 4G antenna on Telegrafen’s roof also went bad. This meant that Uppland Arbederblad had no internet at home or on the phones.

On the bus

It was dark at the newspaper headquarters at that time, there was no internet, and we were also not allowed to use our phones to connect to the internet at our headquarters in the center of Giovik.

However, there are still ways to deliver important news to readers.

– Our employees are accustomed to working with various digital solutions, says Börsen.

This meant that journalist Tor Arne Brekne, who left work to pick up his newly purchased car in Mjøndalen, had to report the latest news from Vestoppland.

He had to do this from his mobile phone on the bus that would take him to the train and Mundalen.

Home sent

After news broke about a power outage in central Gjøvik, which also affected large workplaces in both Torvgatene and Storgata, the OA had to send resources from the office in Øvre Torvgate and home.

News Director Mina Watts returns home when everything comes to a halt at the bureau’s headquarters, and is told that Elvia has run into problems after a drilling accident in Giovik – and that they are now working hard to fix it.

– It’s no different from the way many of our journalists actually work on their assignments. There they can post from different surfaces if they can connect to the Internet via phone – and then connect the computer via this, says the news editor.