Texas Booksellers Assessing Ike Damage  

by Edward Nawotka -- Publishers Weekly, 9/15/2008 9:45:00 AM

Hurricane Ike is likely to have severely damaged at least two bookstores on Galveston Island and left dozens other closed in Southeast Texas when it rolled over the area this weekend. With power still out for much of the region, it was impossible to get a clear overview of the situation, but bits and pieces of information have drifted in.

Midsummer Books, a 3,000 sq.-ft. indie, and an outlet of Hastings Entertainment, were both located areas of Galveston Island where floodwaters rose to levels three to four feet high. The island was evacuated Friday and residents have not yet been allowed to return; the status of the stores is as yet unconfirmed. 

Other stores in the immediate path of the storm after it made landfall include a Waldenbooks in Texas City, as well as Barnes & Noble, Borders and Half-Price Books all near the Johnson Space Center and NASA just outside Clear Lake. Further inland in the city of Houston, manager Jane Moser reports that the Brazos Bookstore remained unscathed, though it was without power as of Monday. “We were very lucky,” she said. Blue Willow Bookstore posted on its Web site that the store had its power restored and hoped to be “operating within days.” 

In addition to stores closing, the status of the Houston Latina Book and Family Festival, scheduled for this coming weekend at the George R. Brown Convention Center in downtown Houston, is uncertain.