Bob Howard's sixth-floor window of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution building faces the CNN Center. As high winds hit downtown Friday night a couple of hours shy of main-edition deadline, Howard and other AJC colleagues heard the infamous sound of a freight train. Then the windows vibrated.

Reporters and editors covering last weekend's storm didn't have to go far. The tornado that hit downtown Friday met us at our doorstep.

ANGELA TUCK PUBLIC EDITOR • E-mail Tuck Recent columns: Social Butterfly a showcase for area's charities  AJC will keep digging into Clayton schools story  How AJC editors decide to put which stories where  Roommate story resonates strongly across racial lines  The Wright stuff, or, more about bias or lack thereof

The newspaper had to be remade, not once but three times. Shortly after it got loud outside, sports reporter Chip Towers called college editor Doug Roberson to report that something was going on at the Dome.

"We spent the next hour and 30 minutes on the phone writing a story for online," said Roberson. "Reporter Mike Knobler and columnist Jeff Schultz got quotes from fans, players, coaches and SEC officials as we crafted the original story for online."

Laura Woody, a senior editor in news and information, sent reporter Tim Eberly out to survey the damage. Chandler Brown, a reporter who was having dinner near the Dome, immediately joined in the reporting, as did reporters Ben Smith and Bill Sanders, who handled rewrite.

At 10:35 p.m., ajc.com staff put up a blog asking people if they got caught in the storm. Reader interactivity serves a dual purpose, said Paul Shea, community manager for ajc.com. "It gives our reporters and photographers contacts and places to focus on."

Reporters and editors still do their own legwork, but reader reports from scenes are increasingly being used in breaking news coverage.

While the news staff added stories and photographs to ajc.com and solicited reader photographs, editors and designers began remaking the newspaper's main edition, which goes to subscribers in metro Atlanta and hits the press around midnight. The edition included a main story, comments from readers and a photograph of the damaged roof of the Georgia Dome.

In the next edition, AJC photographer Ben Gray's photograph of a CNN writer looking out a broken window took up most of the front page. For the early Sunday edition, known as the bulldog, the front page was changed again, featuring a full-page photograph by staffer Allen Sullivan of the storm's fury. That edition, which is sold in stores on Saturday, went to press at 5:30 a.m.

"It all came together really fast," said Howard, senior editor in charge of the copy desk. "We had a really crack team."

Assistant photo editor Kent Johnson got his family settled in the basement of their home, then headed into the office to edit photographs.

"It's kind of difficult," he said of nighttime shooting. "You've got streetlights downtown, but it was raining heavily and we had other obstacles, like downed trees."

Around midnight, Towers learned that SEC officials had decided to move the remaining tournament games to Georgia Tech.

As day broke, reporters and photographers expanded their reporting to neighborhoods near downtown that had even more damage.

By Saturday afternoon, dozens of staff photographs and more than 100 submitted by readers were posted on ajc.com. The galleries alone received 3 million page views, more page views than the entire site gets on an average Saturday.

Obama's storm: Sen. Barack Obama is facing a firestorm of criticism for remarks made by his longtime pastor and mentor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

Dozens of readers e-mailed the AJC to complain that the newspaper was ignoring the inflammatory clips posted on YouTube and broadcast on national networks and cable outlets. A short story on Obama's denouncement of the Rev. Wright's remarks ran inside Saturday's paper, followed by another short story on Sunday.

"I think the controversy did sneak up on us — and we were a bit preoccupied with the storm over the weekend, when [the Obama story] really gained strength," said Bert Roughton, managing editor for print.

By Wednesday, the story had appropriately landed on the front page as a result of Obama's frank speech on race relations.