Publishers Weekly has an article about how bookstores in the New Orleans, Mississippi and Alabama are faring after the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina. They were unable to reach most of the bookstores but some have been destroyed or flooded.
Most of the several dozen stores are still unreachable by phone, either because of downed lines or evacuations. But as noted by Lyn Roberts at Square Books in Oxford, Miss., (which was not hit hard by the storm), most of the independent bookstores are close to the beach, leading her to fear the worse.
A spokesperson at B&N in NY says employees at New Orleans stores (there are six) can't be reached, likely, also, because of evacuations. The country's three major bookstore chains have a total of about a dozen stores in and around New Orleans, and the status of outlets was unclear as of this morning. B&N and Borders both have stores that are in areas in the city hard hit by the storm. The Books-A-Million outlet in Biloxi sat a few blocks from the gulf.
The situation is so bad in New Orleans that bookstores there may not have customers for months even if they survived the flooding. Our BloggersBlog.com website has a collection of Hurricane Katrina links and resources for people looking for more information.
