Lights were out on First Street Thursday

Thursday was picture perfect weatherwise in La Conner, but not so for businesses on South First Street till mid-afternoon. An animal got in the guts of a South First Street Puget Sound Energy pole around 7 a.m. Businesses on First and Morris streets, including the Weekly News, received a “Power is out” email at 7:21 a.m. While some Morris Street businesses had electricity by 9:36 a.m., with notice that “The cause of the outage was bird or animal,” First Street businesses were not plugged in again till almost 2 p.m. Someone heard that 302 customers were without power, but this was not confirmed.

Nell Thorn’s Ted Furst planned to “keep the crew as usual” for serving lunch based on an email forecasting a 9:30 a.m. restoration. By 8 a.m. he was notified that 3:30 p.m. was the new estimate for power getting back on. He “kept a couple of crew for tasks not requiring heating, slicing and dicing and that sort of stuff,” he said and had them cancel lunch reservations. A sign was put on the door that they would be open at 4 p.m. They were.

Furst appreciated PSE’s notifications.

David Kas, co-owner of The Fork on Skagit Bay, said he lost power at his South Fourth Street home. He too, contacted staff to not come in for lunch. His concern over losing perishables was unfounded; his thermometers never went above 40 F.

This compounded his frustrations of wanting to invite customers in. They closed last weekend because of staffing shortages, though he said they are fully staffed now and will stay open Wednesday-Sunday.

Julie Lennartz, co-owner of the La Conner Pub and Eatery, did not open till 5 p.m. Ice from their ice makers and ice purchased from Pioneer Market kept foods cold. She lamented that tourists could not experience a great day in “nice, beautiful La Conner. It was silly.”

On the retail side, frustrations abounded, but Latitude-Longitude La Conner’s Heather Smith reported “the good news is that I got a lot of stuff done. I could be productive.” Staff stayed at the store for afternoon customers, but Smith saw it as “a little bit sad. Most of the foot traffic had wandered off.”

Lisa Sentle next door at Kirmses Antiques came in for an 11 a.m. opening based on PSE’s forecast, but could not get money from the register, so no transactions. She left due to the inconvenience before power was restored.

Kelly Fedak called her boss, owner Yvonne Corbett of Ladders Clothing & Company, who lives in Stanwood. Ladders did not open and Corbett came late in the afternoon with inventory and did make a couple of sales.

La Conner Flowers & Gifts Shannon Carpenter saw there was no electricity when she stopped at Morris Street’s NW Fuels on her way in and they were without power. She processed her flowers and then sat on a bench outside her store enjoying the weather. “We all kind of sat here,” she said. We had a lot of people we could have sold to but we had no power and couldn’t run our POS systems.”

She could not deliver to two customers because no power, no processing payments.

Next door, Mel Leibold at Caravan Gallery was rewarded for her patience. “There were a lot of people and we were delighted with the results. It was such great weather. I made a point of staying till 6:30 p.m. Other shops closed at five,” she reported.

Alan Darcy at Two Moons Gallery across the street was typically philosophical. He, too, saw the town empty out, given that there was no lunch options and he felt for Kari and Jason VandenBosch next door at La Conner Seafood & Prime Rib House. There was not even ice cream or coffee, Darcy noted. He had a good afternoon of sales, he said and also got a laugh that “it is 2021 and Mother Nature will still out. It’s kind of nice that with all our technologies and all and our fancy this and that Mother Nature will still out. I find that strangely comforting, even though it cost me business. The greedy merchant part of me was pissed off, but I didn’t want to let it ruin my day.”

Pam Fields closed her La Conner Coffee Company about 12:30 p.m., went over to Jo Mitchelle La Fountaine’s and bought plants for her home garden, where she spent the afternoon. “The dead giveaway,” she said, was entering her shop at 8:30 a.m. to complete silence – no machines humming or making noise. She walked the street, first south and then north, to see what was happening. Restoration Candle had power, so she referred people to them for coffee.

Her neighbors, Greg and Roberta Westover, owners of Ginger Grater, brought in a generator for electricity for their cash register.

Fields, having gone home, did not return when she got the before 2 p.m. PSE email that “Power is back on.” She was content in her yard.

Pac Nor Westy, Step Outside, Gilkey Square shops and those to the north always had power.

Not quite a typical day in La Conner, but one all managed to get through and once again look forward to a tourist filled weekend.