Ice storm stalls industry in Northeast
By Staff -- Industrial Distribution, 2/1/1998
Bangor, Maine--Distributors in northern New England and eastern Canada saw sales of industrial equipment and supplies climb after a record ice storm damaged plants and stranded homeowners without electricity.The clinging storm, which began Jan. 5, left three million people without power for several days in Quebec and eastern Ontario, while nearly another million lost electricity in northern New England and New York. The heavy damage to Canadian businesses -- where the loss of power shut down oil refineries and other large industrial users -- is expected to bring more than $500 million ($350 million in U.S. dollars) in claims, according to the Insurance Bureau of Canada.
Distributors scrambled to fill orders for generators, tools and supplies as utility crews worked overtime and contractors began repairing plants. Robert Chevrier, president and chief executive officer of Duskes Industrial Supply, Inc., a subsidiary of the Westburne Co. in St. Laurent, Quebec, says several of his stores reopened around Montreal several days after the storm to service a large number of contractors.
"I'd rather see something positive for some other reasons, but that's the way it is," Chevrier says, estimating the storm will generate a few million dollars extra in sales for electrical transmission supplies, plumbing-heating equipment and other products. "I think its going to be substantial. Right now availability of the products is the key issue...at one point you couldn't even drive around."
The company trucked in a load of small batteries from Ontario shortly after the storm, but a few days later was searching for a U.S. supplier to provide more.
Rod Hathaway, vice president of Industrial and Tool Suppliers of Portland, Maine, says his Bangor branch closed early just one day and had no problems getting orders out to customers -- some of whom kept only skeleton crews at work shortly after the storm passed. The company sells MRO supplies in Maine and northern New Hampshire. Hathaway expected to see a run on tools and supplies like gloves as industrial customers repaired damaged buildings.
Bob Martin, an inside salesman at Redlon & Johnson, Inc. in Bangor, says the small company received many telephone orders for anti-freeze to protect plumbing fixtures as sub zero temperatures set in a few days after the storm. Despite being closed for three days, the company also quickly sold its few boilers and furnaces. And one week after the storm hit, one Home Depot in Bangor had sold 1,200 generators at cost.
"We're surviving up here but generators have gone like mad," says Janelle Grover, industrial products manager at N.H. Bragg & Sons, another small distributor in Bangor. "We're in the process of getting some more in."
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