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Russert Mourned After Collapsing in NBC's Washington Newsroom
By Kristin Jensen and Julianna Goldman
June 14 (Bloomberg) — Tim Russert, NBC News's Washington bureau chief, who collapsed and died in his Washington newsroom yesterday, was remembered as a skilled political analyst whose gregarious nature charmed his audience and the politicians who were subjected to his relentless questioning. He was 58.
Russert became famous for his penetrating interviews on the Sunday morning talk show “Meet the Press,'' a program he hosted longer than anyone else, according to former NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw. Russert was also a best-selling author whose books included a tribute to his father, “Big Russ and Me.''
Brokaw announced the death on the air, telling viewers about Russert's childhood growing up in Buffalo, New York, his love for his family and his work ethic. Brokaw said Russert was “one of the premier political analysts and journalists of his time'' and a beloved colleague.
“This news division will not be the same without his strong, clear voice,'' Brokaw said.
Michael Newman, Russert's doctor, said plaque ruptured an artery, causing a sudden coronary thrombosis, according to NBC.
Russert set the “gold standard'' for moving from politics to journalism, said Albert Hunt, executive editor for Washington at Bloomberg News and a close friend. Before becoming a journalist, Russert worked as an aide to former Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan from 1977 to 1982 and then worked for former New York Governor Mario Cuomo in Albany for two years.
When Russert worked for Moynihan during the New York Democrat's 1982 re-election campaign, his research showed that Republican opponent Bruce Caputo's claims of Vietnam service were false. Caputo dropped out of the race.
“It was one of the most important moments in my life,'' Russert told the Washington Post in 1989, describing his research at the New York Public Library. “It was investigative reporting at its best.''

bloomberg.com

Twenty-five years ago today, the ground shook and a roar filled the air in Washoe Valley.
And that was only the beginning.
In the mountains high above, Slide Mountain had lived up to its name.
Just before noon May 30, 1983, snow, dirt and rock slipped from the side of the mountain and crashed into Upper and Lower Price lakes, emptying them of hundreds of thousands of gallons of water and sending a 30-foot wall of debris down the Ophir Creek drainage into northwestern Washoe Valley.
Boulders the size of automobiles and full-grown trees were picked up along the way, creating a quarter-mile-wide swath that killed one man, injured at least four, destroyed four homes and damaged five others.
“It looked like toys coming down instead of the size of boulders and trees that they were,” said Rick Vawter, a firefighter with the Truckee Meadows Fire Protection District who responded. “It was amazing how big they really were but how small they looked coming down the mountain.
Those huge trees, they just looked like twigs coming down there.”
At its peak, according to U.S. Geological Survey estimates at the time, the water was flowing at 10,000 cubic feet per second, five times the flow of a 100-year flood.
The mudslide rushed across Old 395 between Davis Creek and Bowers Mansion and continued toward the newer U.S. 395, covering the southbound lanes in muddy slop.
A quarter century later, those boulders and other tell-tale signs of the disaster still can be seen.
“I think about it every time I go by there,” said Paul Johns, a member of the Carson City Search and Rescue Team and one of the first on the scene. “That’s not the kind of thing you forget.”
The Washoe Valley mudslide was not an isolated event, but one of several natural disasters in the Sierra that came as a result of an extremely wet winter and twice the normal snow pack, heavy rains and unseasonably warm temperatures. Flooding was widespread.

rgj.com