Booksellers Clean Up After Gaston & Charley; Gear Up for Frances

It's been a tough three weeks weather-wise for businesses and residents in the southeast -- with a devastating hurricane hitting Florida, a tropical storm battering Virginia -- and now there's no rest for the storm weary as another massive hurricane is on the way.

On August 13, Hurricane Charley hit Florida's Gulf Coast and barreled into Sanibel Island, forcing residents to evacuate and weaving a path of destruction that the city is still cleaning up. Meanwhile, on Monday, August 30, Tropical Storm Gaston closed numerous streets, knocked out power to 87,000 homes and businesses, and sent a 10-foot wall of water rushing through the low-lying neighborhood of Shockoe Bottom of Richmond, Virginia.

But the storm stories are not over: Hurricane Frances is on course for Florida's east coast, and residents and businesses are boarding up their windows and preparing for the worst, though it's still unclear exactly where the storm will make landfall.

On Sanibel Island in Florida, thousands of trees fell during Hurricane Charley, and falling Australian pines remain a problem. A small percentage of residents are still without power, and debris removal and emergency protective services are expected to cost the island some $10 million, according to The News Press. Remarkably, Sanibel's two ABA-member booksellers, MacIntosh Bookshop and Sanibel Island Bookshop, came through the Category 4 hurricane with only minor damage. The island is set to reopen to the public on Friday, September 3, at 8:00 a.m.

Three weeks after Hurricane Charley hit Sanibel, James Dowling of MacIntosh Bookshop told BTW that his store is finally set to reopen on Thursday afternoon -- just in time for the public reopening of the island. Fortunately for Dowling, his store, in the main retail section of Sanibel on Periwinkle Way, suffered little damage in the hurricane -- even though "the bookstore had eight to 10 trees on top of it" following the storm, he said. "But none of it damaged the roof enough to warrant any serious repairs. There were little pieces of the roof torn up. The books were okay -- thank God!" He noted that his home, also on the island, was hit harder, however. "The roof was damaged and the chimney blew right off. There was some serious wind. But the inside of the house was relatively intact."

Sanibel Island Bookshop, also on Periwinkle Way, came through Charley relatively unscathed, too, said Holly Smith. "The store fared really well -- I was very nervous," she said. "When I heard there were 18-foot surges, I thought we'd be completely underwater!" Smith, a Fort Myers resident, did not return to her shop until a week after the hurricane, though a friend who stayed on the island informed her that the store was okay.

Smith noted that her home in Fort Myers was hit hard by the storm -- a tree hit the roof and a good portion of its shingle area was torn off.

While both Dowling and Smith consider themselves extremely fortunate to have their stores come through the hurricane with minor damage, the storm has had significant impact on business -- even if August is typically the slow season.

"We're all agreed that it was … better than [a hurricane] hitting in the middle of the busy season," said Smith. "Still ... right now, I'm trying to figure out my bills."

"We're not [usually] that busy [at this time of year]," Dowling said, "but with a small bookstore, every penny counts. We'll feel it in the coming months -- we'll feel it when the bills come due!"

As MacIntosh Bookshop and Sanibel Island Bookshop look to return to normalcy, an even bigger storm, Hurricane Frances, is heading toward southeast Florida. And even though the storm is not expected to hit the Gulf Coast, both Smith and Dowling are cautious. "That's what they said about the last one!" Dowling said. "We're hoping it doesn't hit at all!"

Said Smith, "If Frances comes across the state, that's going to be pretty bad."

In downtown Richmond, Virginia, Shockoe Slip leads down to Shockoe Bottom, a low-lying valley that is situated near the James River. When Tropical Storm Gaston hit on Monday afternoon, dumping more than a foot of rain in a period of six hours, floodwaters rushed toward the Bottom.

Kelly Justice of Fountain Bookstore, a three-story building in Shockoe Slip, said the storm caused leaking from the roof to the top-floor attic, and some minor leaking on the second floor. The store's first-floor sales area "is fine," she said.

Justice said that Gaston came as a bit of a surprise. "In the afternoon, I wasn't paying much attention [to the weather], and then I noticed, 'Wow, it's really raining!'" The storm sent ankle-deep water cascading past her store on its way to the Bottom, and stranded Justice in downtown Richmond on Monday, where she ended up booking a hotel.

The store was open for business the following day, though Justice noted the "store smells like wet dog."

The first floor of Cafe Gutenberg, a bookstore and Internet cafe located in the flooded Shockoe Bottom area, was under six feet of water, and "completely out of commission for a while," according to Jennifer Clayton, the store's book buyer. Clayton told BTW that the store's first floor was "totally demolished," but "hopefully, we will get back in business as soon as we can.""

The Washington Post reported that Tropical Storm Gaston left the store with "broken chairs and tables covered with mud and wet books ... strewn around." The article also noted that residents and business owners were blocked from returning to the Bottom as surveyors conducted a building-by-building assessment of structural damage. One building in the area had collapsed onto "three or four cars," the Post noted.

(For previous coverage of the effects of Hurricane Charley, click here.) --David Grogan