Wanted: Flood of stories

Are we dry yet?

I hope so, because I am sure we are all ready for a little bit of normal weather. Like many people, my time last week was spent chasing stories to warn people of approaching danger, report on the response to adversity and chronicle the aftermath.

On Thursday, I took a few hours to start tallying up the impact of bad weather on business. It is a little overwhelming. We've had, within a few weeks, the biggest ice storm in decades as well as a massive rainfall that no one from the area younger than 85 could possibly remember having seen a comparable event.

For farmers, hundreds of thousands of acres are flooded just as planting season was arriving. Car dealers in some locations saw their entire inventory sitting in several feet of water. Businesses were cut off from their customers, endured extra costs for cleanup and were shut down by lack of power, floodwaters and employees being unable to reach their jobs. Construction crews have missed numerous workdays.

I want to hear the stories of my readers. I'm appealing for e-mails, calls and letters describing the challenges businesses have faced to keep the doors open during our wild winter. I'm sure that many of you have fascinating tales that would illustrate the disruptions to normal business of the past two months and that other readers would appreciate.

Also, there are probably some people out there who have turned the tables on Mother Nature, finding a way to make money providing some goods or services that fit the situation. I want to hear those stories, too.

And I want to know about the heroes, the people who went above and beyond their duties to keep a business open, help someone obtain important goods to solve a problem or sacrifice profits to serve their community.

My e-mail address and telephone number are at the end of this column.

The best stories will be featured on my blog, in this space and, hopefully, become the core of a story that seeks to help tally the economic cost of repeated extreme weather events on our area.

So, help me out. Sharing your experiences may help someone else facing a similar dilemma in the future.

The distant future, I hope.

n New mortgage company: Sharon Hopkins of Marble Hill, Mo., purchased First Progressive Mortgage at 1301 N. Kingshighway and has renamed it Heartland Mortgage Solutions. She started the business in Marble Hill about 15 months ago and has been operating in Cape Girardeau for a few months.

Hopkins previously owned Regional Title, which she sold to Bill King, the former owner of several Century 21 businesses, she said. Hopkins has also been a real estate broker.

Despite the doom-and-gloom news reports about credit meltdowns, soaring foreclosures and uncertain real estate prices, Hopkins said money is available at reasonable rates.

"A lot of it is [credit] score driven, but you can get rates from 5.75 percent fixed for 30 years," she said.

n Expanded health building: The Cape Girardeau County Health Department was issued a building permit to add 8,000 square feet, at a projected cost of $1 million, to its home at 1121 Linden St. The contractor will be Zoellner Construction of Perryville, Mo.

Health department director Charlotte Craig was busy helping with flood response last week and couldn't get me any details of what extra services or new programs will be supported in the new facilities, so I'll have more later about this one.

n Spartech restructuring: Spartech Corp., the St. Louis-based manufacturer of thermoplastic sheet materials and other plastic products that has a plant in Cape Girardeau, announced last week that it will restructure its business and reduce its workforce by 10 percent.

The changes include ending prduction at a plant in Minnesota and moving the work to other locations. I was unable to obtain any more information about the plan Friday, so I don't know if any work is coming to our area or if the local plant is in line to lose some jobs. Spartech went through a painful change of command last year and reported a net loss in the first quarter of $1.6 million, down from a profit of $17.4 million in the same quarter last year. The company attributed the sharp drop in profits to a 3 percent decline in sales during the quarter.

The job reductions and restructuring will save the company about $9 million in 2008 and $16 million annually, Spartech said in a news release.

n Auctions offered: United Country-Marble Hill Real Estate will offer auction services in addition to traditional real estate services, owner-broker Brenda Bunch announced in a news release. She will use the United Country network of auctioneers.

The new service will expand the ways the company can help customers seeking to sell property, Bunch said in a news release.

Rudi Keller is the business editor for the Southeast Missourian. Contact him at rkeller@semissourian.com or call 335-6611, extension 126.