Each time our mountain suffers a tragedy in my more than 23 years at the TC, a media blitz hits Idyllwild. And most of the time it arrives at deadline.

Though not on deadline while covering the fire during the evacuation, the three of us who remained behind constantly either wrote and/or answered phones. A TV station in San Diego interviewed me and I fielded questions from NBC, CNN and more regional media sources.

And sometime into about the fourth day of the evacuation, they vanished from town and abandoned us for a better, less stale story. What a relief.

So I groaned when I saw an NBC LA van back into a parking spot in front of the TC building at about 11 a.m. Monday and its camera van park horizontally, blocking parking spots. Geez, here we go again … and on deadline.

Ironically, our front office filled with customers, one of whom, if not mayor, should be nominated town spokesperson. The crew remained the rest of the day, interviewing business people in the Oakwood Village. The final 1 minute, 43 second video aired on Channel 4 that evening.

The entire piece promotted Idyllwild, inviting people up, even naming the jazz fest.

A radio station just called asking to interview us in the same vein as NBC.

We know there’s no better time to come to Idyllwild than now when a fire has created a major protection barrier unseen from anywhere in our beautiful village.

But we businesses who survived the Bee Canyon Fire’s aftermath of tourist loss for nearly three years know how important such promotions are to our town.

We need to do all we can to help these many businesses who depend so much on tourism — inns, restaurants, gift shops, outdoor gear shops, antique stores, etc. — get back on their feet.

For our part, until further notice, we are offering deep discounts on certain size ads in the newspaper.