The final days of this week are going out with a bang — or rather the roar of thunder and the pounding of rain mixed with the staccato beat of hail on the skylight of the Post building.

In one sense, you can compare the news business to the weather. If you don’t like it or things are too slow, just wait around and it’ll change.

I say that as I catch my breath as the second of two hectic days wind down with the threat of severe weather.

You are by now well aware of the events that heralded Wednesday morning; Rafael McCloud’s escape from the Warren County Jail and the subsequent manhunt that has been going on since his departure from the jail was reported about 5:30 a.m. Wednesday.

Events like prisoner escapes, fires and storms are for the most part more than the routine things we cover in the news business, like meetings and banquets, because of the challenges they represent. There are challenges with every story, but escapes and disasters are harder because of the multiple issues involved.

When these stories first break, you ask officials the usual questions they teach in journalism school — who, what, when, how and why. The who, what, when, and possibly the how are usually answered first. Why normally comes later.

I’ve always found disaster and major crime stories interesting, not because I like tragedy, but because of the challenge of looking ahead to how I’ll handle covering it. There are tons of questions that fill my head as I head to my destination: What will I find when I will arrive? Who can I talk to when I arrive — witnesses? Victims? Authorities? Will there be a crowd and will it be hostile? How can I keep myself out of danger?

Those thoughts filled my head Wednesday as I and other reporters chased the leads and the tips where police were because McCloud had been sighted.

And there are the rumors. It’s amazing what comes out of a crime or disaster. Not calls from well-meaning citizens who are trying to help police capture the bad guy, but the outlandish tales that grow as someone’s version of events travels from person to person. Tales you have to track down out of the concern one might actually be true. Very few, however, are, but there’s always that one tall tale that upon inspection turns out to be true.

There have been surprisingly few, as far as I know, in this current situation.

So as the week winds down, I’ll thank my journalism profs for giving me the tools to handle events like McCloud’s escape, my co-workers for the teamwork, and look forward to — I hope — a quiet weekend.

Provided the fugitive is caught by Friday.