|
Honolulu Lite Charles Memminger |
Windstorms blow
good fortune to small
businessesSay what you will about the horrible, wet, windy, destructive weather we've had this winter, but it certainly seems to be good for business. At least if you're in the replacing-things-that-blew-away business or the my-god!-my-house-is-flooding-get-over-here-right-away business.
I woke up after the bad windstorm in January, and my yard looked as if it had been snowing roof shingles. There were shingles from my roof, my neighbors' roofs and some from roofs not even on our side of the island. Shingles everywhere. Winter in Hawaii! Come on, kids! Let's go outside and build an asphalt shingle man! Let's build shingle forts and have a shingle fight!
As I picked up shingles, I stopped to look out at Kaneohe Bay. It was weird. I don't remember ever seeing that particular view of Kaneohe Bay before. Then I realized what it was. My fence wasn't there. About 15 feet of a big redwood fence had blown into my neighbor's yard. Another section had blown down in my yard, and the last remaining span of fence seemed to be, well, on the fence, as to which way it was going to fall.
Add all of this wind damage to the flooding damage from November and December, and this winter is rapidly becoming one in which you want to go out and punch someone smaller than you.
Unless you are in the construction business, this winter is one of the best on record. I've had several crews of roofers and fence builders over to estimate the cost of repairing all the damage, and I'm here to tell you, you couldn't find a happier bunch of fellas. Life is good. After struggling through years of a sluggish economy, the small business contractors are suddenly in the wheat. Not to mention the redwood and the asphalt shingles.
ONE ROOFER practically giggled when he told me that he couldn't even begin thinking about working on my roof until summer. I thought he was going to hug me and say, "Ain't it great!"
It took weeks just to get fence builders to return my call. One business had an answering machine message that said: "Due to the high volume of calls, you can just kiss our big fat okoles, dude. Where were you during the drought when we almost lost our business because we couldn't make payroll? You could have thrown a little work our way, just so we could fight off the tax man, but nooooo. Your fence looked pretty good then, huh? But now you suddenly need us. Want us to be your friend? You make us sick. Leave a message at the sound of the cash register ringing, and we might consider dropping by around Labor Day."
Hey, I'm happy for these guys. I've always been a big supporter of small business. But frankly, all the smiling and poking each other in the ribs with elbows is getting to me. You drive by a house, and workers on the roof are giving each other high-fives.
Business experts, bankers and politicians have been wringing their hands for years trying to figure out how to jump-start Hawaii's economy, and all that was needed was near-hurricane-force winds and about a trillion gallons of water falling from the sky.
They say clouds have a silver lining. In Hawaii the lining seems to be pure gold.
See the Columnists section for some past articles.
Charles Memminger, winner of National Society of Newspaper Columnists awards, appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. E-mail cmemminger@starbulletin.com