LETTER: Please Support Falls Church City Businesses
By BECKY WITSMAN
July 10, 2012
Nearly all of us were impacted in one way or another with the recent storm. Some suffered through hot days with no air conditioning, some of us had to clean out our refrigerators and throw away significant amounts of food, some of us had to wait in lines to get gas and some of us spent money to stay in a hotel to try to avoid as much of the discomfort of it all as possible. Luckily, many of us were not scheduled to work over the weekend, when the storm’s aftermath and impact was greatest, so we didn’t feel the effect of the storm so directly to our paycheck.
But many of our “Little City” retail, service and restaurant business owners, managers and employees were not so fortunate and they are feeling the impact in many ways. Most of them could not open their doors for business over the weekend (and many into mid-week!) because they had no electricity. Consider too that the weekend represents the most profitable part of the week for many of our businesses. So, not only did many businesses fail to make any money over the weekend, they also lost money if they had to throw away any refrigerated items – like our restaurants, grocery stores and other shops that sell food. Employees who counted on income from wages or tips will feel the impact severely; many lost out on a significant amount of their monthly income. Our businesses also still have to pay their rent, vendors, utilities, etc, regardless of whether or not they had a good or bad weekend and paying those bills this month will no doubt be a challenge.
None of us could have prevented this most recent storm from doing the damage that it did, but we can all be mindful of how much our businesses would especially appreciate our patronage at a very difficult time.
Becky Witsman is Business Development Manager for the City of Falls Church
By (see byline)
July 10, 2012
Becky-
Thanks for your letter reminding folks that having a vibrant retail sector in Falls Church depends on all of us deciding to spend our entertainment dollars close to home. We can help make Falls Church a more attractive destination for consumer-oriented businesses by showing support for the companies we already have. In particular, restaurants and grocery stores lost tens of thousands of dollars in food due to the recent power outages, we can help make them whole with our patronage in the coming weeks.
Thanks for the letter – a good reminder! One thing worth mentioning is that some businesses (the new Spacebar comes to mind) were closed because the city warned them about water quality. While the City looks to blame Dominion for not restoring power to the water pumping station fast enough, it’s time for the City government to accept some accountability: there is no reason why a water pumping station should not have sufficient power backups to ensure continuity during a disaster or extended electricity outage. This alone could have helped a number of businesses that had power restored but were told the water might be unsafe for consumption.
Second the motion that FC Water was ill prepared for a power outage. The extra millions that were put into the general fund should have been spent on generators to run the pumping stations. It was lack of investment in the water utility infrastructure that caused the issue not Dominion.
Not that it really matters now, but whenever I looked into the “boil water” warnings it seemed like none of the City was in the area that was directed to boil water (including Spacebar) – but maybe the City was providing direct warnings to some businesses? Or maybe I missed a more global warning about boiling water?
I’m also curious to hear more details about the pumping station problem. I’m sure they did have backup power… the question seems to be if they had enough backup power and the time it took Dominion to get power restored to the pumping station. I don’t know much about it – just what has been in the news.
Andy,
You’re right, much of the City itself was not part of the boil advisory — it was mostly Merrifield, Tysons, etc. However, Spacebar posted the following on their Facebook site (in response to a patron who asked why they weren’t open if they fell outside the boil advisory area):
“Thanks! We gave falls church water our address and they instructed us not to open though. Rather play it safe, since all of our glassware, prep containers and plates need to be washed.”
And I agree that there were obviously some backup generators in place, it just sounds like they weren’t sufficient. I’ve seen buildings and hospitals running on emergency generators for an extended period of time (particularly during the East Coast blackout of ’04). The fact that the water system wasn’t able to operate at full or near-full capacity leads me to believe the City was either ill-prepared or isn’t spending our tax dollars wisely.
It definitely sounds like Falls Church Water wasn’t even confident in their own understanding of the boundaries of the water boil alert (if the Spacebar Facebook posting can be trusted), which is disappointing.
As for the generators, I’m personally curious what the generator capacity was and whether or not it was a reasonable capacity to expect to be needed. Does the water system maintain 6 hours, 12 hours, 24 hours, or what as far as backup power goes? Does Dominion give Falls Church Water some kind of assurances about restoration times? Did the generators perform as expected?
Maybe the water folks screwed up and should have invested in more backup power. Or maybe they invested in the industry standard and Dominion botched the restoration time. Or maybe it’s just one of those things that’s hard to prepare for. It sure is easy, after the fact, to say they should have spent more money on generators.