The Nation - News from July 1, 1986

A fire in an underground electrical transformer in Portland, Ore., blacked out the state’s largest newspaper, the Marriott Hotel, the towering Crown Plaza office complex and the County Justice Center, which houses police headquarters and the county jail. A spokesman for the Oregonian newspaper said staff members traveled to nearby Vancouver, Wash., to use the computer terminals at the Columbian, and that one reporter had used his personal computer on his houseboat to file a story.