By Alex Graham
“It was devastating.”
That’s what Ray Nesrallah has to say about January’s ice storm. It left his Elgin Street restaurant Gusto Bistro without power for more than a week.
Nesrallah had only gone into business in early January when disaster struck.
On Jan. 6 a tree branch, weighed down by ice and snow, collapsed on a power line, sending Gusto Bistro and the neighboring Second Cup coffee shop into darkness.
More than a month later, Nesrallah is still struggling to deal with an estimated loss of $10,000 in sales and stock.
“We don’t know how it’s affected us,” he says.
“All we know is that we lost a lot of stuff. A lot of inventory, a lot of man hours waiting (for the power to come back on).”
Second Cup owner Chad Clost says the power outage shut down his store and sent his customers elsewhere. Thirty pounds of coffee beans and 400 litres of milk spoiled during the power failure.
“It took a good while for customers to get used to us being open again,” Clost says wistfully. “At least a week for regulars.”
He says sales lagged for at least two weeks after the power was restored, adding that even now the business is still “really scrambling” to stay on top of rent and hydro payments.
However, the ice storm didn’t spell economic diaster for all Ottawa businesses. In fact, for the Blockbuster Video at 282 Bank St., the ice storm could almost be described as Christmas in January.
“Usually over the holidays our sales are way up and then in January they go way down,” says assistant manager Gary Fix.
“(Sales) were pretty much the same as they were in December over the ice storm,” he says.
That represents a 40-per-cent increase over the store’s usual weekly sales, which he estimates run at about $10,000.
The biggest winners during the ice storm were probably hardware stores.
Jim Willis, an assistant manager of The Home Depot on Baseline Road, says sales doubled during the first two weeks of the storm, mostly because of the need for generators.
“We stayed open until one o’clock in the morning just to get people their generators,” he says.
He added that Home Depot stores from all over North America were sending generators to Ottawa just to keep up with the tremendous demand.
According to Willis, commitment to customer service has paid off.
“We have a lot of new customers coming in, saying we treated them well during the ice storm, so they’re giving us their business afterwards.”
That dedication also led them to donate firewood, chain saws, vehicles and manpower to people in the outlying areas of Ottawa which were hit the hardest.
But for those in Ottawa who were hit hard, the struggle continues.
Chad Clost insists on maintaining a positive outlook despite all.
“We’re building up towards a good summer.”