Members of the Attar family, Palestinians who were displaced during the eight-day conflict with Israel, return to their home in the Atatra area in the northern Gaza Strip on Thursday, a day after a cease-fire took hold. (Marco Longari / AFP/Getty Imagesa / November 22, 2012)
By Edmund Sanders
November 22, 2012, 10:14 a.m.
RAFAH, Gaza Strip – As the truce between Israel and Hamas appeared to be enduring through its first 24 hours, Gazans spent Thursday sweeping up, digging out and looking forward.
Hamas declared a public holiday, but most shops and many businesses opened their doors. Israeli warships were replaced on the horizon with Palestinian fishing boats for the first time in a week.
Having endured many conflicts, it’s a day-after drill Gazans know well. Residents who sought shelter in United Nations schools went home. A steady stream of families returning from Egypt arrived at the Rafah border crossing. Bulldozers tried to clear alternate roads around bombed-out bridges.
PHOTOS: Gaza conflict
Glass shop owner Kamal Habboush, 45, had seven walk-in customers by lunchtime to replace broken windows. Usually he’s lucky to have one.
But after 16 years in the business, he predicts the real rush won’t come for a few more days.
“People tend to wait to make sure the fighting is really over,’’ he said. “Just in case.”
TIMELINE: Israel-Gaza conflict
The eight-day conflict left at least 162 Palestinians and six Israelis dead. The Israeli military reported the sixth death Thursday, saying a soldier had died from injuries sustained in a rocket attack by Gazan militants, the Associated Press reported.
ALSO:
Gaza City's Mukhabarat building defies Israeli airstrikes
Israel-Hamas cease-fire gives each side enough to claim success
Judge questions former French leader Sarkozy in fundraising probe
It’s the day before Thanksgiving, and you forgot to reserve a turkey. Or maybe you are short on time, or just really lazy and don’t want to actually cook the meal. Either way, modern food science has the entire turkey day menu covered: Just add water.
We put together an all-instant menu, made up of only room-temperature foodstuffs requiring, at most, boiling water or a microwave to prepare. No baking, barbecuing, broiling, frying, grilling, roasting, sauteing or stewing necessary.
When it comes to instant gratification, freeze-drying is king, we’re told by Washington State University food engineer Juming Tang. And it preserves flavor while making food inhospitable to bacteria.
“It was developed in the 1950s, and gives you the highest quality product over canning, pickling and other food-preservation techniques,” Tang said. “But it’s also the most expensive, about three to 10 times as much.”
So if you are ready to boil and microwave your way out of any kind of really labor-intensive Thanksgiving preparations, here’s what you need.
Turkey
You must abandon the idea of a glistening, crispy skinned bird sitting on the dinner table. No room-temperature substitute comes close. But if there must be turkey, your options abound.
Ideally, you’ve already saved some cooked turkey for a rainy day by freeze-drying it. A more readily available choice is canned turkey, but it’s not a good sign when turkey products for your cat or dog (usually made from industrial food factory offal) overwhelm the human selection.
Beyond that, your best bet is an MRE, or “Meal, Ready to Eat,” developed by food scientists to feed troops hot dishes on the front line. Simply pour a little water in a magnesium-filled pouch for an exothermic reaction, and let ‘er cook.
As a last resort, take a hike to your local gas station for some turkey jerky.
Gravy
Kitchen wars have been fought over what gravy is, exactly, but we think it should be brownish, salty, gooey and bad for you.
Gravy cubes, gravy powder and cans of gravy make it one of the easiest Thanksgiving sides to instantly produce, but we vote for the canned species. That’s because they’re less likely to contain strange ingredients such as hydrogenated oils, monosodium glutamate, sulfiting agents, anti-caking agents, artificial colors and the ever-mysterious “artificial flavoring.” But if you like that sort of thing, go for the powder.
Stuffing
Homemade stuffing calls for a lot of toasting and mixing and baking, but we don’t have time for that. Grab any preservative-rich box of the instant variety, plus some butter (see below), and add boiling water.
Butter
Whoever said turkey is the essential element to any Thanksgiving dinner never looked at the ingredients list. Butter sneaks it way onto just about every fixin’, especially dessert.
The average stick of butter lasts only a few months in a refrigerator, but powdered butter lasts for about 5 years. That’s because it’s a dry powder, and bacteria need water to thrive. Go ahead and grab the big can — you’ll need it.
Cranberry Sauce
Don’t over-think this one. Secure a can of gelatin-infused cranberry sauce and be merry.
Mashed Potatoes
You will have no problem securing some instant mashed potatoes, thanks again to the wonders of freeze-drying.
Green Bean Casserole
Merge one can of French-style green beans with one can of cream of mushroom soup, then top with FUNYUNS® or some other mysterious fried onion substitute. Not your grandmother’s recipe, but it’s functional.
Candied Yams
Replicating the crusty-gooey mouth feel of yams, brown sugar and marshmallows without an oven isn’t impossible.
If you’re boiling water on the stove top for another dish, roast the marshmallows on a stick over the flames, then drop them onto the yam and brown sugar mixture. Better yet, cram your dish into the microwave and watch the marshmallows turn into goo.
Bread
Who needs the yeasty aroma of fresh-baked bread when you’ve got bread-in-a-can?
Pie
Making a pie using by only adding water may sound ludicrous, but it’s as easy as… not baking a pie.
For the crust, mash up vanilla wafers or graham crackers, drip in a few tablespoons of butter and shape the mix into a proper pie-filling receptacle.
Opinions on essential Thanksgiving pie fillings vary, but whatever you’re making, gelatin — collagen extracted from ground-up animal bones, hides and skin — is your friend. Mix spices, primary filling (e.g. canned pumpkin), condensed milk, reconstituted eggs (see below) and any other ingredients into some water and gelatin, heat it in the microwave for a bit, then dump it into your crust.
Cooling helps gelatin molecules solidify into a wiggly matrix, so take advantage of chilly weather by setting the pie outside.
Eggs
A few dinner menu staples call for eggs as a binding agent, especially the pies. Thanks again to freeze-drying methods, there’s a powder for that.
Whipped Cream
We don’t know what’s in it, but whipped cream powder is out there.
To play it on the safer side, get some freeze-dried heavy cream powder, add water and whip it up with an electric beater.
If we missed anything, let us know in the comments. And if anyone actually makes the Wired.com instant Thanksgiving dinner, send a photo to @wiredscience on Twitter.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The producers of “The Price is Right” owe a former model on the show more than $ 7.7 million in punitive damages for discriminating against her after a pregnancy, a jury determined Wednesday.
The judgment came one day after the panel determined the game show’s producers discriminated against Brandi Cochran. They awarded her nearly $ 777,000 in actual damages.
Cochran, 41, said she was rejected when she tried to return to work in early 2010 after taking maternity leave. The jury agreed and determined that FremantleMedia North America and The Price is Right Productions owed her more than $ 8.5 million in all.
“I’m humbled. I’m shocked,” Cochran said after the jury announced its verdict. “I’m happy that justice was served today not only for women in the entertainment industry, but women in the workplace.”
FremantleMedia said it was standing by its previous statement, which said it expected to be “fully vindicated” after an appeal.
“We believe the verdict in this case was the result of a flawed process in which the court, among other things, refused to allow the jury to hear and consider that 40 percent of our models have been pregnant,” and further “important” evidence, FremantleMedia said.
In their defense, producers said they were satisfied with the five models working on the show at the time Cochran sought to return.
Several other former models have sued the series and its longtime host, Bob Barker, who retired in 2007.
Most of the cases involving “Barker’s Beauties” — the nickname given the gown-wearing women who presented prizes to contestants — ended with out-of-court settlements.
Comedian-actor Drew Carey followed Barker as the show’s host.
___
Anthony McCartney can be reached at http://twitter.com/mccartneyAP .
This strudel is made with phyllo dough. When I tested it the first time, I found that I had enough filling for two strudels. Rather than cut the amount of filling, I increased the number of strudels to 2, as this is a dessert you can assemble and keep, unbaked, in the freezer.
1 1/2 pounds apples (3 large) (I recommend Braeburns), peeled, cored and cut in 1/2-inch dice
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
2 tablespoons unsalted butter for cooking the apples
1/4 cup (50 grams) brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/4 cup (30 grams) chopped or slivered almonds
3/4 pound (1 large or 2 small) ripe but firm pears, peeled, cored and cut in 1/2-inch dice
For each strudel:
8 sheets phyllo dough
7/8 cup (100 grams) almond powder, divided
1 1/2 ounces butter, melted, for brushing the phyllo
1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Line 2 sheet pans with parchment.
2. Place the dried fruit in a bowl and pour on hot or boiling water to cover. Let sit 5 minutes, and drain. Toss the apples with the lemon juice.
3. Heat a large, heavy frying pan over high heat and add 2 tablespoons butter. Wait until it becomes light brown and carefully add the apples and the sugar. Do not add the apples until the pan and the butter are hot enough, or they won’t sear properly and retain their juice. But be careful when you add them so that the hot butter doesn’t splatter. When the apples are brown on one side, add the vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg and almonds, flip the apples and continue to sauté until golden brown, about 5 to 7 minutes. Stir in the pears and dried fruit, then scrape out onto one of the lined sheet pans and allow to cool completely. Divide into two equal portions (easiest to do this if you weigh it).
4. Place 8 sheets of phyllo dough on your work surface. Cover with a dish towel and place another, damp dish towel on top of the first towel. Place a sheet of parchment on your work surface horizontally, with the long edge close to you. Lay a sheet of phyllo dough on the parchment. Brush lightly with butter and top with the next sheet. Continue to layer all eight sheets, brushing each one with butter before topping with the next one.
5. Brush the top sheet of phyllo dough with butter. Sprinkle on half of the almond powder (50 grams). With the other half, create a line 3 inches from the base of the dough, leaving a 2 1/2-inch margin on the sides. Top this line with one portion of the fruit mixture. Fold the bottom edge of the phyllo up over the filling, then fold the ends over and roll up like a burrito. Using the parchment paper to help you, lift the strudel and place it on the other parchment-lined baking sheet. Brush with butter and make 3 or 4 slits on the diagonal along the length of the strudel. Repeat with the other sheets of phyllo to make a second strudel. If you are freezing one of them, double-wrap tightly in plastic.
6. Place the strudel in the oven and bake 20 minutes. Remove from the oven, brush again with butter, rotate the pan and return to the oven. Continue to bake for another 20 to 25 minutes, or until golden brown. Remove from the heat and allow to cool for at least 15 minutes. Serve warm or room temperature.
Yield: 2 strudels, each serving 8
Advance preparation: The fruit filling will keep for a couple of days in the refrigerator. The strudel can be baked a few hours before serving it. Recrisp in a medium oven for 10 minutes. It can also be frozen before baking, double-wrapped in plastic. Transfer directly from the freezer to the oven and add 10 minutes to the baking time.
DURING Thanksgiving week, the aroma of pumpkin pie wafts throughout the land, as it has for generations. But these days, chances are the source of the smell is not actually pie.
While Starbucks, now serving its seasonal pumpkin spice latte for the ninth year, is often credited with helping popularize the flavor, pumpkin spice has spread to myriad categories.
There were 79 limited-time menu items featuring pumpkin at the top 250 restaurant chains from August through October, more than double the 37 during the same period in 2011, according to Technomic, a restaurant market research firm.
Those dishes included pumpkin bagels at Bruegger’s Bagel Bakery, pumpkin ale at BJ’s Restaurant and Brewhouse and pumpkin spice pancakes at Shoney’s.
“Pumpkin,” a New York magazine headline declared in October, “is the new bacon.”
Darren Tristano, executive vice president of Technomic, said comfort foods often influenced flavor trends.
“That familiarity and comfort feel is something that I think Americans are clinging to because the economy has been rough on many of us,” Mr. Tristano said, adding that such foods represented “a nice, simple pleasure and an affordable indulgence.”
It may not occur to a diner at McDonald’s washing down pumpkin pie with a pumpkin shake or pumpkin spice latte, but flavor trends are not cooked up by food brands alone. Companies that specialize in flavors often are the instigators.
Dianne Sansone, a flavor chemist and head of technical services at Flavor and Fragrances Specialties, which is based in Mahwah, N.J., said the company first developed a pumpkin spice flavor in the early 1990s for a coffee brand, well before use of the flavor became widespread. Nondisclosure agreements prohibit the company from naming customers, but its Web site says they include both “Fortune 100” and “middle market” companies.
Typically food brands provide a base, like unflavored ice cream or yogurt, and in a subsequent presentation Flavor and Fragrances serves company representatives samples to demonstrate how a flavor like pumpkin spice tastes in their product.
What companies end up buying is not just a recipe, but a physical product as well.
“We send out 400-pound drums of flavor that go into things like coffee and cupcakes and cookie filling,” Ms. Sansone said.
Yoplait, a General Foods brand, asked consumers on its Facebook page in 2011 for new flavor preferences, and as a result introduced Yoplait Light pumpkin pie yogurt as a seasonal flavor this year.
Elizabeth Fulmer, associate marketing manager of Yoplait, said sales of the flavor far exceeded expectations.
“We didn’t know how big it was going to be,” she said. “We did this as a little bit of an experiment this year and the response has been really exciting.”
Planters, a Kraft Foods brand, introduced pumpkin spice almonds as a seasonal flavor in 2011, the same year that Jet-Puffed marshmallows, another Kraft brand, introduced a pumpkin spice variety.
Through a licensing agreement, Unilever introduced Starbucks pumpkin spice latte ice cream as a seasonal variety this year. It is, in other words, an ice cream based on a coffee drink that was based on a pie. Another Unilever ice cream brand, Ben & Jerry’s, has marketed a seasonal pumpkin cheesecake flavor for several years.
Hiram Walker introduced pumpkin spice liqueur, a seasonal offering, in 2007, when the flavor “was popular within coffee but not as widespread as it is today,” said Juli Falkoff, a brand manager at the company, which is a Pernod Ricard USA brand. “I feel like this season it’s really pumpkin spice time — it’s everywhere you look.”
It may seem paradoxical, but pumpkin spice products often lack a pumpkin note, connoting instead spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and clove that are sold as the pumpkin pie blend in spice aisles.
Coffee brands, among the first to introduce pumpkin spice flavors in products that are not baked, continue to experience strong demand.
Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, which introduced a seasonal pumpkin spice coffee in 2001, has in recent years begun selling it in early August instead of later in the month because of pent-up demand.
Derek Archambault, senior brand manager at Green Mountain, says that in the first week it is sold each year, it often is the best-selling flavored coffee and occasionally the best-selling roast overall.
Along with Starbucks pumpkin spice latte ice cream, the company introduced an instant coffee version of the flavor this year under its Via line. When some stores, primarily in Manhattan, ran out of what Starbucks calls the sauce used to flavor the pumpkin spice latte in October, a flurry of panicked messages from fans appeared on Twitter and Facebook.
Lisa Passé, a Starbucks spokeswoman, said there was never an actual shortage. because warehouses remained well stocked. Rather, she said, individual stores had “outages” for a day or two because of the popularity of the flavor.
“This year we saw such increased demand that it’s in the running to be the No. 1 seasonal flavor for the entire year,” said Ms. Passé. In recent years, she added, the top seasonal flavor was peppermint mocha, a winter item.
But some recently released products flavored with pumpkin pie spice have left consumers scratching their heads.
One such offering came from the Kellogg brand Pringles, which introduced a seasonal variety of its stackable potato chips this month that is available only at Walmart.
“Pumpkin Spice Pringles?” the Twitter user @emptychampagne wrote, expressing a sentiment echoed by many on social networks and blogs. “I give up. There is no hope for the future. None.”
Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. submitted a letter of resignation to House Speaker Boehner Wednesday, following a lengthy medical leave of absence.
Rep. Jesse L. Jackson Jr. resigned from Congress on Wednesday, saying in a letter that he is cooperating with a federal investigation "into my activities" but blaming his health problems for his decision to step down just two weeks after his reelection.
Jackson's letter to House Speaker John A. Boehner was his first acknowledgment of the ongoing corruption inquiry into his alleged misuse of campaign dollars.
"I am doing my best to address the situation responsibly, cooperate with the investigators, and accept responsibility for my mistakes, for they are my mistakes and mine alone," Jackson said in the two-page letter dated Nov. 21. "None of us is immune from our share of shortcomings or human frailties and I pray that I will be remembered for what I did right."
Despite his admission of "my share of mistakes," Jackson said his deteriorating health was the reason he was quitting. He has been on medical leave since June while receiving treatment for bipolar depression.
PHOTOS: 2016 presidential possibilities
"Against the recommendations of my doctors, I had hoped and tried to return to Washington and continue working on the issues that matter most to the people of the 2nd District. I know now that will not be possible," Jackson said in the letter.
"My health issues and treatment regimen have become incompatible with service in the House of Representatives. Therefore, it is with great regret that I hereby resign as a member of the United States House of Representatives, effective today, in order to focus on restoring my health," Jackson wrote.
The congressman could not be reached for comment.
Jackson, 47, won election this month while being treated at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. He issued a statement on election night saying he would return to work once his doctors approved.
"Once the doctors approve my return to work, I will continue to be the progressive fighter you have known for years," said Jackson, who is no longer a patient at Mayo. "My family and I are grateful for your many heartfelt prayers and kind thoughts,” he said at the time. “I continue to feel better every day and look forward to serving you."
He has not appeared in the House since June 8. Nor did he stage a campaign event -- or even run a TV ad. Jackson advanced to the general election after defeating a one-term member of Congress, Debbie Halvorson, in a March primary. PHOTOS: America goes to the polls
The next Congress will be sworn in Jan. 3 and Jackson would have been required to take the oath of office before being allowed to vote.
News of the resignation on the eve of Thanksgiving, when Congress was not meeting and many Washingtonians were traveling, seemed to take even Jackson staffers by surprise.
His press secretary, Frank Watkins, said Wednesday morning that he didn’t know anything about a possible resignation. Watkins attributed the rumors to press speculation.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) said in a statement that she had spoken to Jackson and his father, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, in the afternoon.
“As he works to address his health, our thoughts and prayers are with him, his wife, Sandi, his children as well as his parents," she said in a statement. "We are grateful to him and his family for their long-standing record of public service to our country."
The House adjourned Friday and reconvenes at 2 p.m. Tuesday. Protocol calls for Jackson's letter to be placed before the House on Tuesday and his resignation noted then, an official said. Normally the House has 435 members, but there is already one vacancy, so Jackson's will be a second.
Under Illinois law, Gov. Pat Quinn, a fellow Democrat, would call a special election to fill Jackson’s 2nd District congressional seat, which extends from Chicago’s South Side to Kankakee.
Jackson's resignation, long expected by political insiders, set off a scramble with as many as a dozen names of potential successors already surfacing. They range from political has-beens to up-and-comers in the south suburban district.
Jackson has been under investigation by the House Ethics Committee for alleged improprieties related to his bid to win appointment in 2008 to the Senate seat that had been held by President Obama. A Jackson emissary is alleged to have offered to raise up to $6 million in campaign funds for disgraced former Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich in exchange for the governor appointing Jackson to the Senate seat.
Blagojevich is serving a prison term for corruption convictions, including trying to sell or trade the Senate seat.
After the March primary election, the congressman’s aides belatedly announced his medical leave, which at first was blamed on “exhaustion.”
He is the son of the Rev. Jesse Jackson, the civil rights leader, and the husband of Chicago Alderman Sandi Jackson, 7th Ward.
It runs using gas-filled tubes, mechanical relays, and paper tape. It’s a giant, and it’s slow. But it runs, dammit.
On Tuesday, volunteers at Britain’s National Museum of Computing rebooted the Harwell Dekatron — a 2.5-metric-ton monster from the early 1950s — making it the oldest working digital computer in existence.
It took about half an hour to warm the machine up. Then the volunteers — who’d spent the past two-and-a-half years rebuilding the machine — fed in a program via paper tape. Gas-powered tubes lit up. There was some clicking and clunking. Lights flashed. And then the 61-year-old printer typed out the answer to a simple multiplication problem — its first job since the 1970s.
Two of the Dekatron’s original designers and a few of its former operators were on-hand yesterday at the National Museum of Computing’s Bletchley Park home to catch the reboot. “The machine worked perfectly,” says Kevin Murrell, who’s led the restoration effort.
The machine was built in 1951, and it served for six years as a number-cruncher for the U.K.’s main atomic research facility at Harwell. “This was used in the very early days of modeling atomic power plants,” Murrell says. It could do complex equations flawlessly, at about the speed of two mathematicians armed with mechanical calculators.
In 1957, the giant computer was shipped of to the nearby Wolverhampton and Staffordshire Technical College, where it served as a comp-sci teaching tool for a couple of more decades. That’s where it picked up the name the WITCH (Wolverhampton Instrument for Teaching Computing from Harwell). Then, in 1973, the Guinness Book of World Records proclaimed it the world’s most durable computer. It was eventually mothballed in a museum.
About three years ago, Kevin Murrell was looking through photos of computer components the National Museum of Computing had in storage. Something popped out. “In the corner of one picture was a little control panel,” he remembers. “I looked at this an thought I know this control panel. That’s the machine I remembered from all those years ago.”
Amazingly, about 95 percent of the machine was still in the collection. So after a few years of cleaning the machine’s 4,000 connectors, and 828 Dekatron tubes, rewiring and repairing power supplies, the historic computer was good to go.
It uses gas-filled Dekatron counting tubes instead of the transistors you’d find in modern computers. As the six-person restoration team discovered, these tubes held up amazingly well after more than 60 years.
The clear tubes store values in one of 10 cathodes, grouped in a circle around a central node, so you can actually see what’s in memory. This combined with the Dekatron’s plodding pace, makes it a remarkable computer teaching tool, Murrell says.
“You can look at the memory location and say, ‘Yes, that contains the number three.’”
NEW YORK (AP) — Imagine having William Shatner supply your outgoing voicemail message. Or maybe you’d prefer Morgan Freeman coolly telling callers to wait for the beep. Or perhaps having Betty White joke around is more your speed.
All it takes is $ 299 and some luck.
The advocacy group Autism Speaks is offering custom-recorded messages from those celebrities as well as Will Ferrell, Carrie Fisher, Tom Hanks, Derek Jeter, Leonard Nimoy, Patrick Stewart and Ed Asner.
From Dec. 3 to Dec. 9, a limited number of 20-second long MP3 messages will be recorded by each celebrity on a first-come, first-served basis for fans to do with as they wish. All requests must be of the PG variety.
Asner, the curmudgeonly Emmy Award winner of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and “Lou Grant,” dreamed up the unusual fundraiser with his son Matt, who works for Autism Speaks.
“I think people will get a charge out of it,” says Asner, who is currently on Broadway in the play “Grace.” ”I’ll probably say, ‘What are you wearing?’ Or, ‘Take it off.’ Something like that.”
All proceeds will support autism research and advocacy efforts.
If he could get a message from one of the other stars participating, which would Asner want?
“I’m awfully stuck on Will Ferrell, having been subjected to him in ‘Elf,’” Asner says. “But they’re all such standouts — Patrick Stewart, Leonard Nimoy, Shatner. The list doesn’t stop. Even Betty White,” he adds about his “MTM” co-star. “She’s still got some good left in her.”
Everyone yawns. And we start yawning even before we are born.
Now, using ultrasound video recordings, researchers have worked out a technique to distinguish prenatal yawns from the simple mouth openings that we also engage in well before birth.
For the study, published on Wednesday in PLoS One, scientists scanned 15 healthy fetuses, eight girls and seven boys, at 24, 28, 32 and 36 weeks’ gestation. They distinguished yawns from jaw openings by the timing of the action and shape of the fetuses’ mouths. In all, they counted 56 yawns and 27 non-yawn mouth openings. By 36 weeks, the yawning had completely disappeared.
Why fetuses yawn is unclear — for that matter, it is unclear why adults yawn. In any case, the study’s lead author, Nadja Reissland, a developmental psychologist at Durham University in England, said that yawning in a fetus is different from yawning in adults.
“When you see a fetus yawning, it’s not because it’s tired,” she said. “The yawning itself might have some kind of function in healthy development. Fetuses yawn, and then as they develop they stop yawning. There’s something special in yawning.”
For Eileen Fisher, the storm was the biggest blow to her company's operations since she opened it in 1984.
IRVINGTON, N.Y. — Eileen Fisher had no time to spare. For her clothing stores to be up and running for Thanksgiving weekend, and her many retail clients stocked for the holiday rush, her company’s response to Hurricane Sandy would need to be close to flawless.
Eileen Fisher
The flooding from Hurricane Sandy decimated an Eileen Fisher store in Irvington, N.Y., and forced the company to close its headquarters there.
And it was.
All but one of the company’s 58 stores are open, and retailers like Nordstrom and Bloomingdale’s have Ms. Fisher’s latest designs on their racks. On a recent afternoon, aside from its cramped quarters, there was no sign of the storm on the second floor of the Eileen Fisher headquarters here, 20 miles north of Manhattan. Phones were ringing, online orders were being processed and Ms. Fisher was at her desk.
But step downstairs, where work crews were sawing off the bottom part of walls, removing mold-ridden desks and pulling up drenched carpet, and the magnitude of the last month’s miracle was hard to dismiss.
“It was a mess,” Ms. Fisher said. “I couldn’t believe it.”
Hurricane Sandy hurt retailers large and small. It closed airports, ports and roads, jamming merchandise at critical shipping times. More than a third of stores in the Northeast closed for at least a day, according to the research firm RetailNext. Macy’s has said that the storm delayed sales. Target said November started off choppily, and a Kohl’s store in Brooklyn will be closed at least through January.
For Eileen Fisher, started by Ms. Fisher in 1984, the storm was the biggest blow to operations ever. It decimated a store here and closed her headquarters, her Manhattan design center and her warehouse in Secaucus, N.J. For smaller retailers — Eileen Fisher expects about $350 million in revenue this year — a week or two of closed offices, stores and warehouses in early November could be ruinous.
Recovery was both an urgent and daunting task. A broad insurance policy helped a lot. So did some planning and a good amount of luck. As did an almost out-of-body detachment on executives’ parts to see past the emotion of sewage-soaked shirts and stained rolls of fabric to the prize of reopening a ravaged business.
Even the cash in the register at the Irvington store had to be taken home and blown dry. Almost $1.5 million, 12 Dumpsters and eight moving-truck-size mobile storage units of damaged goods later, Eileen Fisher was — for the most part — back.
“It was just stuff,” Ms. Fisher said.
Perils of a New Location
Ms. Fisher moved her headquarters to Irvington 20 years ago, choosing a brick building that was just a couple of yards from the Hudson River. It reminded her of the TriBeCa location where she had started the business, she said, and who doesn’t get inspiration from water?
Now that inspiration had become a liability. On a recent sunny day, the Hudson seemed calm and threatless, a cool gray-brown river about 10 feet below its banks. But on the night of the storm, the river rose over a barrier and stampeded north, churning through buildings “like a washing machine,” said Peter Joslin, the company’s facilities manager.
Mr. Joslin is from the Midwest, and he’s seen his fair share of river flooding, including last year, when a corner of the building took on water during Hurricane Irene. In the week before Sandy hit on Monday, Oct. 29, he was watching the weather forecasts, but, as he says, “we’re pretty laid back down here.”
Then, on the Friday before the storm, he received an e-mail from his predecessor in the job. It contained just four words: “Get out them sandbags.”
“That started to freak me out,” Mr. Joslin said.
He called the owner of a remediation company that had done work for Eileen Fisher in the past and obtained a promise that if anything went wrong, the company would be on site within two hours. He then called a moving company to see if it could remove some important files and other valuables, like $20,000 copiers. The moving company was already booked.
Employees worked through the weekend, piling sandbags three high along the building, encasing the second floor of headquarters in plastic in case the roof leaked and caulking windows. The storm struck Monday night.
