As Outage Wears On, Economic Toll Registers Signs Of Impact: Manual Typewriter; Office Without Walls; Weekend Shift For Clothing Makers
Pharmacist Armand Ahrendt pecked out prescriptions on a manual typewriter under a flashlight.
Grocer Jeff Warren converted a public pay phone into his private office.
And Greg Tenold on Friday had to send his 250 employees home - for the fourth time in a week.
As an economic development program, this ice storm really stinks.
While Inland Northwest companies enter the fifth day of disruptive power outages, the costs borne by businesses and their employees are adding up.
“We’ve been so unproductive it isn’t funny,” said Tenold, president of Spokane Industries, a foundry and metals manufacturer sprawled across four buildings in the Spokane Business & Industrial Park. “Had we known what was going to happen, we would have been better to just lock up Tuesday and go home.”
Of course, no one knew. Business owners have dutifully returned to their cold offices and factories each morning, hoping they were among the fortunate reconnected to power lines.
Increasingly, their patience is being rewarded.
Dark stretches of Sprague Avenue, commercial buildings along Fancher Avenue and nearly all of the industrial park in the Valley were relighted Thursday and Friday. Spokane Industries was the lone cold company in the park because its 13,400-volt substation line snapped.
All Seasons Apparel Inc., a sewing shop in the industrial park, asked employees to work today to catch up.
“The closure probably cost us $10,000,” said president Mark Gantar, “but we can make up most of it.”
Power returned Friday to ASC Machine Tools Inc., which employs 250 people in the Valley. But officials said the down time nipped the company for thousands of dollars in lost shipping costs and orders that customers couldn’t place.
“I don’t know if our businessinterruption insurance will cover it,” said Jim Dunn, vice president of manufacturing. “It’s just unbelievable. This was far worse than Mount St. Helens,” referring to the ash cloud that paralyzed the Inland Northwest after the 1980 eruption.
For some retailers who lost power, the outage initially boosted sales when residents rushed to snap up candles, batteries, fuel and blankets.
By Friday afternoon, the effect had worn off at Super 1 Foods on the South Hill, where a handful of shoppers breezed like ghosts through shadowy aisles lined with empty freezers.
“The big rush has settled down,” manager Warren said after taking a call on the store’s pay phone, his temporary office line. “We keep hoping and praying that the power is coming back.”
Not far from the store, the Haagen-Dazs ice cream was getting soft at the 7-Eleven on Grand Boulevard.
But supervisor Kris Bill was doing her best to convince shoppers that the store was open, with the appearance of power. Generator-powered floodlights brightened the store, which was one of four 7-Elevens without electricity Friday.
“We’re a convenience store,” shrugged Bill, assistant market manager for the 15 Spokane and North Idaho stores. “We just had to work a little harder at being convenient this week.”
Ahrendt, the pharmacist, made no pretense about being convenient. In fact, the only people who knew he had opened Manito Pharmacy were longtime customers who were counting on him to fill critical prescriptions.
“I’m sure we lost money, but I’m not going to worry about it,” he said, adding that he sent three employees home for the week. “There’s no use trying to figure it out.”
Lyn-Tron Inc. also lost power, according to president Don Lynn, but gained some notoriety in the process. In a strange twist, the Spokane Area Economic Development Council this week ran radio spots touting the recruitment of Lyn-Tron and the company’s 80 employees from Southern California.
“I don’t have any regrets,” Lynn said, laughing. “Remember, in California we had earthquakes.”
, DataTimes