picking up the pieces
DESCRIPTION
Story of a group of small business owners trying to rebuild their livelyhood after a devastating fire.TRANSCRIPT
BUSINESS | Group Health gets OK to redevelop former hospital site in the Overlake area [9]
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Glenn Price, of Price Farrington law � rm, looks through the window of what used to be his o� ce before a Dec. 26 � re burned the Forum West building, located at 12501 Bel Red Road. CHAD COLEMAN, Bellevue Reporter
BY NAT LEVY
When clients stepped into Glenn Price’s law o� ce, they got to know him immediately.
Awards and degrees plastered across the wall showed his and his partner Charles Farrington’s prestige.
But, unlike many law o� ces, Price Farrington adorned its with decorations collected through decades of explo-ration. An imposing wooden Cigar Store Indian served almost as a protector of the � rm, and a 7-foot space needle towered over the room.
PICKING UP THE PIECES
Businesses scrambleafter disastrous fire
[ more FIRE page 17 ]Crews responded to the � re on Dec. 26, but the � re was too dangerous to � ght from inside. COURTESY PHOTO, Bellevue Fire Department
BY NAT LEVY
Bellevue and Tacoma don’t have a lot in common, but they will likely share a U.S. Congressional representative, according to the State Redistricting Commission’s new district boundaries.
� e commission reached an agreement late Sunday night that rearranged the state’s 49 legislative districts and 10 congressional districts to evenly distribute population. � e agreement came only hours before an 11:59 p.m. deadline in which the task would have been handed o� to the State Supreme Court.
Under the plans, Bellevue, Mercer Island and Newcastle will be grouped with southeast Seattle along with northeast Tacoma and the cities of Renton, Seatac, Tukwila and Federal Way to form the 9th District, represented by Democrat Rep. Adam Smith.
Smith, who was � rst elected in 1997, said in a statement he is glad that the district still features his hometown of SeaTac, and he is excited to represent this diverse area.
“Regardless of how the congressional lines have changed, I will continue to work hard, promote policies that encourage job creation and economic growth and make sure the people of the 9th Congressional District are heard and well-represented in Congress.”
� e state’s new districts will go into e� ect 30 days a� er the Legislature convenes Monday, Jan. 9, if no changes are needed. By law, if the Legislature wants to change the plan approved by the Redistricting Commission, any new district boundary lines can a� ect no more than 2 percent of a district’s population and must be approved by two-thirds of the members of the House and Senate. � e governor may not veto the commission’s redistricting plan. � ere is no � nal vote of approval on the redistricting plan from the Legislature.
� e district would be the � rst in the state of Washington
Bellevue joinssouth Seattle in new congressional district
The redrawn 9th Congressional District will stretch from Bellevue to north Tacoma.
[ more DISTRICT page 5 ]
By Nat Levy
Owning a small business is no small commitment. It takes time, money and effort. Protecting a small business from a disaster can be even tougher.
At large firms, specific staff members or departments are dedicated to making sure a fire such as the one that destroyed the Forum West building on Bel Red Road Dec. 26, won’t cripple the business. They have protocol, and often hire outside firms for extra help, said Bob Posey of the Business Continuity Center of Seattle.
Small businesses aren’t so lucky. Many of the firms at the Forum West building have only a few employees. They don’t have the time or the resources to set up an outside firm, or develop an extensive plan. Posey has a few recommendations for ensuring that a business can still function in the face of natural disaster.
• Back up your data. The most precious possession of many of those businesses, most of which are healthcare or legal firms, is client data. The loss of this would be detrimental to future operation. Posey recommends looking at Cloud computing and keeping separate discs of data at the home of one of the employees.
“There’s nothing we can do if people haven’t taken the steps to have their stuff backed up.”
• Make your office replicable. Data is important to have, but if it can’t be read it’s useless, Posey said. Posey recommends a concept called bare-metal backup, a system in which everything from a work computer, the data, programs and operating systems can be restored on another machine as long as it has a similar server.
• Practice makes perfect. Even the best plan can go awry when the pressure is on. Posey recommends run-ning simulations so employees understand how to react when something goes wrong, and how to begin the process of recovery.
“A lot of technology is not very involved, it’s just a bunch of left and right turns, but the permutations off those turns are mind-boggling,” he said. “You can’t just try it for the first time in an emergency situation.”
Now all that remains is charred wood, twisted metal, and a few filing cabinets.
Price Farrington’s office was one of 15 businesses hurt by one of the biggest fires in Bellevue’s recent history on Dec. 26. The fire destroyed the Forum West building, leaving the businesses with an uncertain future, while staring at a bad economy. It also demolished an area that, for nearly two decades, Price treated as a second home.
“You immediately begin thinking not only about the disruption of the business, but also about the last 16 years of accumulating personal memorabilia,” Price said Tuesday, as he combed through the roofless wreckage of his former office. “Mine was a different kind of office.”
Claims adjustors told him to only look for things that would affect the business’ ability to function. However, Price wanted to make sure belongings, such as his valued Meerschaum pipes, survived.
The blaze was first noticed at 5:31 a.m., Dec. 26, by a passing resident. Fire crews responded immediately, but all they could see was smoke. When crews found the flames they began to fight them, but after 10 or 15 minutes, part of the floor collapsed, said Bellevue Fire Department Lt. Troy Donlin.
Firefighters inside the building retreated to a “defensive” position, outside. But it was too late; the fire had engulfed the building.
The official cause of the blaze remains undetermined, Donlin said, but he guessed it began somewhere in the overhead area and spread quickly.
“There are no fire stops in the overhead of that building, and no monitored alarm system and no sprinklers, so it’s anyone’s guess how long that fire was burning,” Donlin said.
The building, built in 1979, sits off the corner of Bel-Red Road and 124th Avenue Northeast. The parking lot is riddled with crusted wood and melted plastic. Windows are blown out and half of the building’s roof is simply gone.
Donlin placed the damage on the building at ap-proximately $1.5 million, a number he was told by some is “ridiculously low.”
Francesca Scott, property manager of the building for Sherron Associates, said no decision has been made as to the future of the building; the focus is on keeping the 15 businesses in the building informed, and helping them through the insurance process.
“You can’t help it when you have built such a big relation-ship with them; I don’t know if there is even a word that can describe this,” Scott said.
More than a week later, business owners are salvaging what they can out of their offices.
Dr. Steve Bucklew spent his Tuesday afternoon trying to
save a few pieces of office furniture from his practice, Laser Nail, LLC, which treats skin conditions with laser therapies. The laser and much of his technical equipment suffered heavy water and ash damage.
Bucklew, like Price, lost many of his personal effects in the fire, but the first floor location of his office lessened the damage. Unlike Price, who only heard about the fire later, Bucklew saw firsthand the death of his favorite “hiding spot.”
Bucklew said the loss won’t break his back, as the laser center is one of his several business endeavors, but the impact is clear.
“It’s a loss of livelihood,” he said. “I don’t know how soon we’ll get going again.”
For others, the destruction of the business could cut off their only money-maker.
Teresa Chen is an acupuncturist who shares part of an office in the building with Dr. Bucklew. As she worked to remove soggy office furniture from the building she plotted her next move. Chen needs to find new office space for her practice as soon as possible. The loss of a few thousand dol-lars as a result of temporarily closing could be devastating.
“Of course there’s the loss of business, and I can’t get back to work,” she said. “Without this job, we have no income.”
The fire left many of the tenants scrambling to find temporary office space. Chen and Bucklew are on the hunt for a new location, while Price has been able to secure a spot just down the road, thanks to some friends. Despite the hardship, many of the companies were able to protect the records that will keep their businesses running once they find new space.
“There’s going to be some disruption and some tempo-rary quarters, but we’re open for business,” Price said. “We don’t want to leave our clients hanging.”
Nat Levy can be reached at 425-453-4290.
www.bellevuereporter.com January 6, 2012 [17]
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a worker sorts through the burnt remains of the Forum West building, located at 12501 Bel Red Road, more than a week after a Dec. 26 fire that destroyed the building and displaced businesses. chaD coleman, Bellevue Reporter
[ Fire from page 1 ]
Cause of the fire still undetermined
Small businesses have tough time planning to recover from disaster
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