After the Flood Part II: Update on Managing the Paperwork and Patience After Disaster Strikes.

As regular visitors to this blog might remember, the Red Dragonfly Gallery suffered a flood back in early October, due to a sudden storm here in our home town.

I previously wrote about the way such disasters-- which originally forced us to be closed for nine days-- tend to have lingering effects we didn't take into account at the time of the event. 

The Lingering Effects Continue...

It has now been about ten weeks since our gallery flooded. 

In the interim, we've had to deal with a number of difficult realities.

In spite of the fact that we had fairly comprehensive insurance coverage, we were not covered for damage caused by "outside surface water." We still shake our heads a bit over the fact that we're paying $117 a month for a service that did us absolutely zero good. 

"Negative news" spreads remarkably quickly. The fact that the general shopping public encountered closed doors at four stores in our shopping arcade for nine days has resulted in what will be months worth of work to overcome the false idea that these shops closed permanently.

Whereas we can call that "a PR issue," beyond that it also means that we now have extra expenses for advertising and promotion that we would not have had, before the flood.

The Compensation Issue: a Labor of Patience

Since our commercial insurance didn't cover the loss, the next stop was our local city government. Since the flood was ultimately a case of negligence in infrastructure maintenance, the landlord and affected tenants approached the city with a claim for damages.

Whereas local representatives "informally" admitted culpability, an entire new claims process had to be started. This involved meetings with the claims adjusters representing the "blanket policy" for all city events in the state of Washington... interviews and filing lots of supporting paperwork. 

And then, there is the waiting. And waiting. And waiting.

A couple of inquiries by us-- as well as our fellow flooded tenants-- didn't get very far, and only revealed that "this process takes time, please be patient," and that the adjusters "were currently working on 67 other incidents." That's nice, but it's really not much of a comfort or consolation.

Expenses, Expenses... but Life Goes On

This blog update on our process following the flood was prompted by the email we received yesterday, letting us know (about 10 weeks after the incident) that our building's collective claims would be "processed during the coming week."

Of course, that statement doesn't mean that we are actually going to receive payment during the coming week... it just means that our claims have been processed, and now will be submitted for approval and funding.

Given that we are approaching the holidays and the New Year, what are the odds that nothing will be actually moving till the beginning of 2018? Pretty good, I would guess.

How This Long Process Affects MANY People

The direct effect we-- and our three neighbor businesses-- are facing is that between us, we're essentially "loaning" a six-figure amount in losses to organizations unknown, until we receive compensation.  We are, in essence, "out of pocket" of funds we all desperately need to run our businesses effectively.

In a "functional" sense, being out-of-pocket by this amount means that we have been late paying our rent to the landlord for a couple of months... and probably will be, till we are paid.

It also means that quite a few artists to whom we owe payment for items sold are getting paid late, affecting their livelihood. It's difficult to tell those who have put their trust in us to represent them and their art that there are no checks forthcoming... and right before the holidays, too!

Meanwhile, our sales have been negatively affected by the fact that we simply can't afford to pay for additional advertising that might help us fund the shortfall. And that's happening at a very unfortunate time of the year, when people tend to be spending more money than usual.

Which also means that we personally haven't been paid since the end of September. Thankfully we have other businesses that help us make a living, so we're not completely at a loss, there. But I can only imagine how additionally devastating an event like this would be to someone who were 100% dependent on the income from their shop, just to live.

Dark Clouds on the Horizon

Whereas we are hopeful that a settlement from the city's insurance fund is forthcoming-- hopefully in January-- we have other concerns arising.

A smaller concern is that we have seen some of the interim paperwork from the insurance adjusters, and many of our items have been either "written down" (i.e. reduced in value) or depreciated because they were not new at the time of the flood. It seems likely that we will only get back 60-70% of what we lost, once the dust settles.

Whereas this is evidently standard practice, the reality is that there is no place to buy "3-year old versions" of some of the fixtures and electrics we need to replace. The choice will be "new" or "none." So there will be some difficult choices ahead.

The bigger issue we have ahead of us-- which is actually unrelated to our flooding incident-- is that the city will be starting a "downtown infrastructure improvement and beautification project" in the first week of January, and lasting till the end of June.

In a practical sense, what that means is that the street, sidewalks and most parking along the main downtown street where our gallery is will be torn up for construction... making access quite difficult. Whereas we are not 100% sure about the scope of the project, there's little doubt it will have a negative impact on the number of visitors we can expect to see during the first half of 2018. How much it will hurt us... we simply don't know.

Anyway, that's the latest update from our little corner of the world. 

Until the next time, we'd like to wish everyone a Happy Solstice and a wonderful Holiday Season, wherever you may be!

Thank you for reading! Red Dragonfly is a proud member of the @sndbox creative initiative.

The Red Dragonfly is an independent alternative art gallery located in Port Townsend, WA; showcasing edgy and unique contemporary art & handmade crafts by local and worldwide artists. All images are our own, unless otherwise credited. Where applicable, artist images used with permission.