Booksellers' Business Battered by Hurricane Isabel

In the aftermath of Hurricane Isabel, which first hit North Carolina on Thursday, September 18, flooding neighborhoods dozens of miles inland, and then moved north through Virginia and Washington, D.C., booksellers are assessing damage and working towards getting business back to normal as quickly as possible. Though it lost strength as it came inland, the hurricane was still the strongest to hit the Atlantic Coast since Hurricane Floyd in 1999. As of Tuesday, September 23, many areas were still without power.

Washington's Politics and Prose Bookstore and Coffeehouse was without electricity until Monday afternoon, September 22. The bookstore didn't sustain any damages to property, but did lose business. The store remained open during the power outage, but only during daylight hours, so long-awaited author events, including appearances by Paul Krugman and Annie Proulx, and an off-site event planned for Friday, September 19, featuring former secretary of state Madeleine Albright, had to be cancelled.

"We were anticipating a crowd of 250-300 people for Paul Krugman, which we had to cancel," said co-owner Barbara Meade. "Monday night we were going to have Annie Proulx. She was flying from Denver, when it was time to board the plane [she contacted us], and we couldn't promise her we'd have power for her reading. Understandably, she decided not to come."

Meade said the cancellations of long-planned events have been hard on staff, who also didn't have power at home. But Meade said there was a bright spot thanks to the preparations of staff member John Ray. Long before the hurricane, he devised "emergency packs," complete with flashlights, batteries, and receipt books. Politics and Prose was able to stay open during daylight hours and conduct business with the help of Ray's packs. "He really saved the day," she said.

Though Politics and Prose has been open since Friday, business isn't yet back to normal and Meade didn't expect it to be for a few more days, at least. "We have 300 boxes in the receiving room, and we still haven't entered all the sales and ISBNs we wrote down while we were out of electricity."

Olsson’s Books & Records in Alexandria, Virginia, located in a two-story brick building that overlooks the Potomac River, was hit hard. Staff prepared as much as possible by building a two-foot wall of sandbags in front of the store. With high tide, the storm surge, and high winds, the water washed over the bags as though they weren't there, said Alicia Greene, marketing manager for Olsson’s. The store filled with four to five feet of water, nearly reaching the second floor. "The day after the water receded there was a foot of pulped book," said Greene. "It was heartbreaking. We've had people working day and night for several days filling dumpsters with damaged product. But through all that we never lost power."

Greene said that the compact disks weren't damaged, and that most of the books were spared since they are kept on the second floor. Olsson's did, however, keep their bestsellers and signed books on the first floor, all of which was destroyed.

Olsson's dried out and opened on Sunday, though they had to bring the registers up to the second floor, which was undamaged.

Prince Books in Norfolk, Virginia, kept its lights on and emerged undamaged, but suffered lost sales as a result of being closed on Friday and Saturday, and business has yet to return to normal. Owner Sarah Pishko told BTW that although Prince Books saw no destruction of property, the city of Norfolk was not as fortunate. Along with homes being flooded and huge trees snapped, a major tunnel artery between Portsmouth and Norfolk, carrying 30,000 vehicles a day, was flooded and will be closed for weeks.

"Now after the storm, citizens are too busy tending to pressing issues to go shopping for non-necessities," said Pishko. "For four days, I too was consumed with finding ice, a working gasoline pump, hot coffee (I could only wish for a hot shower). On the plus side, I now have a spanking clean (and empty) fridge and freezer! Now I just need customers to return, and I need a way for one of my employees to get from her house on the other side of the Midtown Tunnel to the bookstore."

In the Outer Banks of North Carolina, Bill Rickman, owner of Island Books, with locations in Corolla and Duck, reported downed trees, severely eroded dunes, and flooding in both areas, but his stores escaped harm. They didn't, however, escape loss of revenue. Both stores are heavily dependent on tourism, said Rickman, and most of the area was evacuated. "We opened in Duck on Saturday, but nobody came. Everyone who wasn't evacuated was busy cleaning up."

Rickman remarked that though he was relieved the storm didn't hit during high season, which runs from June to July, September is still usually a strong month for sales. Rickman told BTW he didn't expect commerce to return to normal for weeks. But he did think he'd see tourists return before the season was over "as long as we don't get any more hurricanes."

The Book Depot in Kinston, North Carolina, fared better than many and weathered the storm unscathed. "We're fine. We were really lucky," said owner Debra Schreckengost. "We were on the southwest side of the storm and the wind was not as bad. There was some damage around town, but nothing like Hurricane Fran or Floyd." Schreckengost said the Book Depot closed Thursday but was open the next day for slow business. By Monday, she said, business was back to normal.

Lori Westervelt of Quarter Moon Bookstore in Topsail Beach, North Carolina, had similar good news to report. "We were far enough south that we didn't even lose power. We boarded up, prepared the store, and moved things up off the floors to top shelves." Quarter Moon did remain closed Friday to put the store back in order. "We pretty much had normal business on Saturday," said Westervelt. "I was surprised. I guess a lot of people who scheduled to go to the Outer Banks stayed around here instead."

One bookseller hadn't even held the grand opening of her store before suffering a nature-induced setback. Patrice Beck-Stein who had planned to open Beck and Stein Books in Newport News, Virginia, during the first week of October will now have to delay opening another week at least, she said. Beck-Stein, who told BTW she'd suffered other previous delays, commented, "The hurricane set us back, but I'm not having a negative reaction to it. We've already suffered a number of unjustified delays [caused by] the construction workers, so I'm already annoyed. We'll open when we open, and there's not a darn thing we can do about it." --Karen Schechner