Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, March 12, 1994 TAG: 9403140222
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: By STEPHEN FOSTER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
That's the silence that permeates a darkened retail store without electricity, or the nothingness that exists where normally hundreds of machines putting out products rumble incessantly.
On the other hand, for some businesses lucky enough to be shining lights while their competitors weren't, or providing services needed after the storms, the sound of cash registers ringing perhaps lent some harmony to the morbid cracking outside.
The last two ice storms made losers out of many of the valley's industries and crushed many retailers' sales. On the flip side, hardware stores and auto body shops were able to benefit some off of people's misfortune. Straddling the fence, waitresses and cooks found themselves working harder for their employers - which sometimes saw more money coming in, sometimes saw less.
"The storms did have a significant impact on us," said Bob Moore, human resources manager at Hoechst-Celanese Corp. in Narrows.
He estimates the plant has lost $2 million to overtime and lost and wasted production because of the ice storms and severe cold.
Like many industries, the plant produces much of its own power. At Hoechst-Celanese, 75 percent is produced on site, with 25 percent coming from Appalachian Power Co., he said.
"Anytime you have a blip or interruption [of power ] it ripples up and down the line," causing products to go off-specification, and stopping machinery.
"I hope this winter is behind us," Moore said.
At the Radford Army Ammunition Plant in Fairlawn, ice caused a quarter of a million dollars in damage to fences, roofs and buildings, said Nicole Kinser, public affairs officer.
The arsenal sent workers home during last week's storm and shut down operations for 28 hours. The workers could take the time lost as vacation pay or consider themselves furloughed for a day.
"They did that to avoid any cost associated with the storm," Kinser said. By Hercules' thinking, not having to pay the workers offset whatever loss of production was incurred. Kinser said she couldn't recall a similar measure during her five-year tenure.
Corning Inc. in Christiansburg, and Blacksburg's Federal-Mogul Corp., Wolverine Gasket and Manufacturing Co., all lost power and production to the storms.
"Every time we lose power we have to shut down. We lose a lot of product," said Federal-Mogul personnel director Chris Christensen. "It's not what it costs in dollars and cents - I can't get a day back.
"It's what might have been [produced] had we not lost power."
"What might have been" for some restaurants sometimes translated into 'What can we salvage?'
At Applebee's in Christiansburg, workers resorted to hanging flashlights from the kitchen ceiling and firing up a Coleman lantern when power went out for two days during the first storm and a day during the second, said fill-in manager Jocy Graham.
They served cold sandwiches and still had gas for their grill, but frying or broiling was impossible, she said. The restaurant was busy and turned a profit, but not as much as it would have normally.
"We lost a lot of sales. It was real hard to make up the difference," she said.
"When you don't have power, obviously it's going to affect you," said David Leinwand, owner of The Farmhouse in Christiansburg. During the first storm, the restaurant had to close one day. And they were swamped with customers when water in Blacksburg was cut off.
He figures The Farmhouse lost $30,000 in sales.
But come the next storm, he had power when most didn't.
That Thursday, "our lunch was probably about five times what we normally do [and] we had a tremendous, tremendous Thursday night," with people waiting in line to eat, he said.
Either way, "we just accept it as ... these things can happen," he said.
Tom Sheets, manager of New River Valley Mall, said retailers had to grapple with spotty power outages, but in spite of the weather February was a good month.
Even though stores had to shut down at times, he said they made up for that with increased sales from added people coming to the mall while power remained out at their homes.
"We didn't see any significant loss that we didn't make up," Sheets said.
For individual retailers, though, it was more difficult.
"It's been more trying and frustrating than anything," said Nancyne Willoughby, owner of Fringe Benefit in Blacksburg and president of the Downtown Merchant's Association. "Not much you can do except cry when your creditors call you and you say, 'We were closed.'"
Like virtually all of downtown Blacksburg, her shop lost power for at least six hours one afternoon during the last storm.
Around the corner, Mary Riley kept her Mainstreet Bazaar open by candlelight for three hours that day. That was worth something, but she finally had to close up at 3 p.m.
Although the end of the 1993 was prosperous, "whatever we had to get us through the hard times is gone."
"Most of downtown is in the same boat."
Plus, the weekends following the storm haven't turned out as good as she'd hoped, because people weren't out shopping; they were cleaning up their yards, she believes.
It's that aftermath time that tempered some hardware stores operators' glee in making sales during the storms.
"When they're working on the trees, they may not be fixing something else on their house," said Jeannie Weddle, controller of Ace Hardware in Radford. "It shifts your sales more than anything."
Regardless, "I know we had a busy day when we had power outages." The store stayed open late, sometimes without its own power. Generators, chain saws, lamp oil, batteries, and parts for heaters - all were hot items.
"You sold a lot of winter stuff that you never did before," said Mac Gallimore, owner of New River Supply Inc. in Narrows, "but you lost a lot of other sales because people couldn't get out.
"One defeats the other purpose," he bemoaned.
And for Kenny Jennelle, owner of Collision Plus, an auto body repair shop in Christiansburg, a wave of fender-bender repair business is made more difficult because it gets tough to get parts.
All along the Mid-Atlantic, cars slip-slided into one another.
"A lot of cars of the same make have been hit," he says. "The parts supplies are depleting.
But he's made 150 estimates on dented vehicles, busted windshields and other damages over the last month, he said. Estimates are up 40 percent. Much of the damages are in the $500-$1,000 range.
"Business is up quite a bit from it," and his mind is eased by his belief that fewer people get hurt in accidents that happen on ice rather than dry roads.
"When the roads are slick [a car] just kind of bounces off," he said.
by CNB