Oregon Public Broadcasting

Business owners are figuring out how last week's bad weather hit their profit margins.

One economist estimates that in Portland, restaurants, shops and other businesses lost about $370 million.

With numbers like that, both Washington and Oregon are looking for help from the federal government.   But as Kristian Foden-Vencil reports, the overall picture could be much worse.

With unemployment increasing; the credit crunch; and cases of financial fraud on an unprecedented scale; it might seem logical to conclude that sales over the holiday season would be dismal.

Add to that the largest snowstorm the Pacific Northwest has seen in 30 years, and rumors of a retail collapse began circulating.

But it appears, some Christmas shoppers are not easily dissuaded.

Alissa White: “We were jam packed that last week before Christmas.”

Alissa White is a display coordinator for Topanien Gifts. It’s a fair trade decorative gift and jewelry store in Multnomah Village – a hilly Portland suburb where even snowplows fear to tread.

Alissa White: “Well the first couple of days of the storm were slow definitely – people not being able to get out. But once they realized that stuff wasn’t going to be melting and it wasn’t going to be going away, everyone kind of started panicking that last week before Christmas.”

White says sales are down a little bit, but not by as much as was feared.

Think of yourself, she suggests:  Was there anyone you didn’t buy a gift for because of the storm?

A few miles away at the Hillsdale Town Center, the do-it-yourself pottery store ‘Paint Pots,’ had a similarly upbeat shopping season. Monica Animas is a cashier there.

Monica Animas: “I think we ended up making pretty much what we did last year. Only it wasn’t the same flow. It all happened on one day kind of thing.”

That was the day when there was a break in the weather and shoppers were bound and determined to get out, whether by foot or by a chained-up four-by-four.

Still, says Cheryl Bledsoe of the Clark County Regional Emergency Services Agency, there are businesses suffering the double whammy of a lackluster economy and bad weather.

She says her agency is asking those companies to report losses.

Cheryl Bledsoe: “We’ve had one business already submit for their period and so we’re hoping that others will. The deadline is February 2nd 5 o’clock to receive the information either by mail, in person or via fax.”

Bledsoe says Governor Gregoire will then forward those reports to the federal government -- in the hope of securing Economic Disaster Loans.

Portland mayor-elect, Sam Adam, says Oregon is doing the same thing.

Sam Adams: “Everyone has told me that it’s really difficult to get that help but it’s really important that we try. Given that access to credit in this current financial crisis is already difficult. We’re going to see what we can do. I don’t want to lead people to believe that that’s a foregone conclusion that we’ll get help to our small businesses from the federal government, but we’ll try.”

With New Year sales and holiday specials, the shopping season is still in full swing. But Robert Whelan, an economist with ECONorthwest, estimates businesses can conservatively expect a 1 percent drop in holiday-time revenues.

And while that’ s not good news, neither is it the steeper retail decline that some other areas around the nation are reporting.