In Her Angry Path; Hurricane Katrina vs. Bookstores
Part One
- By Karen Wright
Hurricane Katrina heads for New Orleans.
By Karen Wright
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, my question was, what, if anything, can we as booksellers - comrades in arms, or perhaps arts would be a better word - do to help our fellow booksellers who were in Katrina's angry path?
This from the American Booksellers Association CEO Avin Mark Domnitz: "There has been a Bookseller Relief Fund started to assist booksellers affected by Hurricane Katrina. Contributions to the fund will be accepted, and ABA is seeding the relief fund with an opening donation of $25,000. Checks should be made payable to Bookseller Relief Fund and sent to ABA's office at 200 White Plains Road, Tarrytown, NY 10591. Please write "Bookseller Relief" on the outside of the envelope. "Our hearts go out to all those devastated by Katrina, and we want to do whatever we can to help. We know many in the book industry feel the same way, and are looking for ways to offer assistance."
"Several stores from around the county have also indicated their willingness to house and/or employ booksellers whose stores are unlikely to be able to reopen anytime soon. For a list of offers, go to www.bookweb.org/read/8067. Anyone willing to take in or to employ a displaced bookseller is asked to contact ABA's Director of Special Projects, David Walker, at (800) 637-0037, ext. 6612 or davidw@bookweb.org."
I checked in with David Walker of the American Booksellers Association and he put me in touch with two different booksellers affected by Katrina. One store was lucky and survived almost unscathed, the other was essentially disintegrated. Here is the story we gleaned from Tom Lowenburg whose store survived one of Mother Nature's nastiest temper tantrums.
We felt a ray of hope for southern booksellers when we got a press release that said "Octavia Books, co-owned by Tom Lowenburg, is back. Octavia Books is the first book store selling new books to reopen in the Greater New Orleans area since Hurricane Katrina. We are determined to help residents return to a normal life, and for most of them that means some form of relaxation, and entertainment after non-stop clean-up of homes and businesses."
We called Tom in New Orleans and queried him about some of his experiences and thoughts on this tragedy.
Q: Tom, how long have you lived in New Orleans?
A: All my life. I grew up here, though I have traveled elsewhere.
Q: Have you experienced any other hurricanes?
A: As a child, Hurricane Betsy was memorable. That was about 1964 or 65 when I was in third grade. We missed a bit of school, but it was nothing like this. I was not here when Camille struck, but we saw a lot of destruction for years afterwards between Mobile, Alabama, and New Orleans.
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In Her Angry Path; Hurricane Katrina vs. Bookstores
Part One
- By Karen Wright
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Q: Tell me a bit about Octavia Books?
A: We opened our doors in 2000. We have an inventory of about 15,000 new books. Our store is located at 513 Octavia Street in Uptown New Orleans at the corner of Octavia and Laurel streets between Magazine and Tchoupitoulas. That is uptown about four miles upriver from the French Quarter. We have a little coffee area and there is a bakery in the building, which just reopened as well, and we have a good relationship with them, referring customers to each other. There is also a judo studio and a yoga studio in the building. They only suffered a few stains on the ceilings, some falling panels on the overhead, and some broken glass. We were all very lucky.
Q: Tell us what you did do when you heard that Katrina was headed your way?
A: We thought we needed to be concerned, but at that time Katrina was following a complicated path and no one was quite sure when or where she would land. We didn't actually make the decision to evacuate until it turned on Sunday, August 28. We had an author reading event with mystery writer Julie Smith scheduled for that night [Saturday]. Julie writes about New Orleans from the perspective of someone who lives here; The Axeman's Jazz, The Kindness of Strangers and Jazz Funeral are some of hers. Needless to say, we had a small turnout, but she graciously showed up and read passages that had to do with hurricanes from some of her works.
My wife and I and Pippin, the dog, left about 6 a.m. on Sunday and headed out with one of my employees and her mother to my mother's house in Mobile, Alabama. As you know, the hurricane hit on Monday. After the hurricane, we headed to Montgomery, Alabama and then to Cincinnati and ended up in Columbus. We waited out the second storm, Rita, there and then wanted to get back to New Orleans and see what had happened to our store and our home. The first roadblock wouldn't let us through. They said only essential business owners could come back. They didn't think a bookstore was "essential," evidently. We went to the next roadblock and we got in.
Q: Perhaps that guardsman was somewhat more enlightened. What did you find?
A: Yes. It was amazing, after two weeks we had no idea what we would find. First we went to our house, which was amazingly intact with orchids blooming in our kitchen. We had been afraid all of our house plants would have shriveled up and died without our being there to water them. There had been water in our streets that covered the median (what we call the neutral ground). Our basement, which is three feet belowground and unusual in New Orleans, had water in it. We lost major appliances, some bookstore storage stuff, a few things - but nothing too important. We were overjoyed.
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In Her Angry Path; Hurricane Katrina vs. Bookstores
Part One
- By Karen Wright
none
Next we went to the bookstore. The gold-fish outside in the pond survived and had grown bigger, and Pippin, the bookshop dog, was happy to be back. We were blessed that we also didn't lose one single book out of 15,000 titles! In fact, when we returned, we found everything in the store in virtually the same place as we left it before Hurricane Katrina.
Q: How many employees did you have?
A: Two full time. One left a couple weeks before the hurricane and we believe he is now working in a bookstore in New York. One of my employees, Denise, lived in a house close to the river and canal and we don't know about her house, but she is okay. She left town and went to Mobile then on to Washington, D.C. Another employee, our Saturday gal, Dawn, lives in Lakeview and her house is or was under ten feet of water. She lost everything and went to Florida.
Q: Are you doing any business?
A: Yes, we are quite busy; almost a normal business day.
Q: What can we booksellers around the country do to help other booksellers who were hit hard in Katrina's angry path?
A: It is hard to know. I feel that a book store is an integral part of every neighborhood. We hope that all the book stores will be able to reopen. A lot of the booksellers don't know what to do right now and are still getting their bearings. Another interesting thing is that after 9-11 there was huge national interest in that disaster and everyone wanted more information about it, so new books came out. Now, new books will come about the Katrina disaster and about New Orleans. There are a number of authors already working on that; Tom Piazza and Jed Horn to name two. It is important to realize that New Orleans does matter to rest of the country. The music, the food, the history; this country's history would be a lot different if it were not for New Orleans. Octavia Books has always been a local center for the exchange of ideas in our community, and we are determined to continue as an essential part of the rebuilding of New Orleans.
Q: Thanks Tom and congratulations. How can folks reach you if they have questions?
A: To contact me call Octavia Books phone 504-899-7323 or email me at tom@octaviabooks.com.
Next month we will speak with one or two of the not-so-lucky ones.
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