Storm set spending patterns

BANGOR — Whenever weather forecasters predict a winter storm, lines at supermarkets and hardware stores lengthen as people buy staples such as food, water and rock salt that are necessary to ride out the burdensome snow and ice.

It’s a given — each year winter weather forces brief interruptions in lifestyles. Mainers expect the snow and ice and they make the required adjustments.

On Jan. 6 a year ago, trickles of ice started covering the roads and trees. It was beautiful at first, as sunlight made the area look like a crystal palace. As usual, people went shopping for supplies.

But as the storm continued, many Mainers were forced to shift into overdrive their usual winter spending habits. As the brunt of the ice storm hit Jan. 8, shopping for certain supplies suddenly became a matter of survival.

Food, water, batteries, candles, portable heaters and generators were the hottest-selling items in mid-January. At Home Depot in Bangor, store managers had to ask the company’s other 700 locations to send heaters and generators to Maine. “We sold out repeatedly,” said assistant store manager Kurt Michalewicz. “We cleaned out the whole country. Some heaters and generators came from California.”

For people without electricity, the first few days of the storm meant eating at restaurants. Pizza and hamburger sales were brisk at those establishments fortunate enough to have power. At Dunkin’ Donuts, it was the busiest January on record, said Lou Lima, owner of three Bangor-area locations. “January usually is a slow month because everyone’s in hibernation.

“They had no means of making coffee,” Lima said. “They had no means of drilling water, let alone heating water. I’m glad we were open for them.”

Although food sales were up in January, overall statewide retail sales were down 8.9 percent for the month. That month in 1997, Mainers spent more than $726 million. In 1998, they spent almost $661 million. About $84.5 million was spent in grocery stores in 1998, up from $81.6 million in 1997.

During the storm, Mainers held off on purchasing automobiles and building supplies or visiting other retail shopping outlets. Although some restaurants experienced a brisk business, others did not, as Mainers chose to stay indoors, and prepared food purchases fell more than 4 percent.

But as the ice started to thaw, so did shoppers. In February, total statewide retail sales were up 24 percent from that month in 1997, mostly in the restaurant, building supplies and general merchandise categories.

“What we generally concluded was that spending was redirected instead of lost,” said Galen Rose, an economist with the State Planning Office. “[The ice storm]just delayed things more. It just changed the pattern of spending.”

What fueled spending in February and March were home repairs and debris cleanups. Many residents and city officials had to turn to banks, the Small Business Admininistration or the Maine Emergency Management Agency for financial relief.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency so far has doled out more than $44 million to municipalities and nonprofit organizations, said state agency business manager Joe Albert. Most of that funding went to Penobscot, Kennebeck and Waldo counties. He expects that figure to top $48 million once final figures are in. The individual and family grant program under the state’s Emergency Management office released $1.5 million.

More than 20,000 people contacted the Small Business Administration for disaster relief loans, said Colleen Hiam, a communications specialist in SBA’s Region One office in Niagara Falls, N.Y. Of that, only 2,685 were completed. SBA granted 918 loans totaling $8.1 million, she said.

Most homeowners turned to insurance companies for relief. More than 50,000 claims were filed with the top 15 homeowner insurance policy writers in the state, said Alessandro Iuppa, superintendant of the State Bureau of Insurance. In the three months after the storm, the insurers had processed more than 42,000 claims totaling $47.7 million. “Some were paying claims they didn’t have to pay,” he said.

Iuppa said a number of policyholders did ask if food spoilage was covered under their policy. In most cases, it was not, and many are asking for that to be added to their coverage.

Some Mainers did complain about their insurance companies, but nothing out of the ordinary, Iuppa said. His office usually receives up to 1,500 questions or complaints a year.

The ice storm did create products — commemorative items for Mainers to put away and take out later to remember the experience. The Bangor Daily News published a retrospective of photographs and stories and a poster. The retrospective, titled “Days of Ice,” sells for $1. Proceeds of poster sales went to help efforts to replant trees statewide. It sells for $6. Both still are available at the newspaper’s Main Street office.

Central Maine Power’s book, “Ice Storm ’98: A CMP Photographic Journal,” at first was printed as a keepsake for utility workers in appreciation of their efforts to get customers back on line, said spokesman Mark Ishkanian.

“As we looked through the photographs, the more we realized the message was of how the whole state pulled together,” he said.

Now in its fourth printing, more than 12,000 copies have been sold at area bookstores or by sending $16 to CMP. The Augusta-based utility has donated more than $300,000 to the United Way Storm Relief Fund from the sale of the book.

Local television stations produced videotapes of their ice storm coverage. At WABI Channel 5, more than 1,000 tapes have been sold, said Kelli Hanson of the station’s creative services department. Some of the proceeds went to the Good Neighbor Fund.

“The ice storm was a very important event in family or personal histories,” Ishkanian said. “I can see why people want a keepsake.”