Sonoma County grapples with tenuous economic recovery after October wildfires
If anyone epitomizes the spirit of Sonoma Strong, the local rallying cry since October, it’s Ashish and Sia Patel.
The Sonoma couple purchased the historic former Glenelly Inn in 2011, renovated the rundown Glen Ellen landmark and reopened it as the Olea Hotel the following year.
But last fall, the woody Warm Springs Road property with guest rooms was badly scorched by the Nuns fire as it rampaged across Sonoma Valley.
Two of the cottages burned to the ground. Fences, outdoor furniture and landscaping all were incinerated.
And buildings that barely survived - thanks to the efforts of firefighters and a rooftop sprinkler system - suffered major smoke damage.
While there were dark days that followed, the Patels say their outlook has brightened recently. Their battles with their insurer are behind them, a major remodel is well underway, and their anticipation builds daily for the hotel’s July reopening.
“The whole area around us was fairly decimated,” Sia Patel said, “so to have something come back to life again and be better than it was before is really exciting to us.”
Twenty miles to the north, Jimmy Chen isn’t feeling so encouraged.
Nearly seven months after the Tubbs fire leveled much of Larkfield, the co-owner of Kaede Japanese Restaurant has a dazed, defeated look.
“It’s not like we want to give up,” Chen said as his eyes drifted around his nearly empty restaurant last week, “but the situation is kind of forcing us to.”
Chen said the restaurant was having a great year last year, and he was even considering expanding to the space next door in the Larkfield Center, where the eatery has operated for four years.
Then fire hit, devastating the surrounding neighborhood, though the center - thanks to some local heroics - was saved.
When the restaurant reopened a couple of weeks later, business was initially strong, Chen said. Customers he knew by name returned, giving him hope the things might recover.
But it wasn’t to be. At least half of his regular customers had lost their homes, Chen estimates, forcing them to move.
“Most of them came here just to say goodbye.” Chen said.
He has laid off his waitress because he can’t afford her and plans to end lunch service soon. His lease is up at the end of the year and that is likely when he’ll close for good.
“We try not to care much anymore,” Chen said. “Emotionally, we just can’t keep up.”
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As spring rains recede and wildflowers brighten scorched hillsides, Sonoma County is poised to see if an economic recovery will blossom or whither. No other region in the October firestorm was hit so hard, with nearly 5,300 homes lost, 24 people killed and thousands of residents displaced.
Will tourists spooked by the disaster return this summer to patronize the wineries, restaurants and lodging establishments that have come to rely on them, or will they steer clear?
Will the recovery effort make a smooth transition from debris cleanup to new home construction, giving fire survivors hope and builders a full construction season, or will a punishing lull set in?
Will headway be made on major new residential projects, widely seen as crucial to solving a housing crisis that constrained growth even before the fires, or will they remain mired in legal, financial and political limbo?
And will those residents - including members of the county’s workforce, from doctors and engineers to teachers and tradespeople - rebuild and propel the region’s recovery or depart and fuel a brain drain?
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The drop in tourism after the fires was most pronounced in the areas directly affected by the blazes, which torched more than 137 square miles in the county.
Peter Spann, who owns a Sonoma Valley winery with a tasting room in hard-hit Kenwood, said the cancellations after the fires were immediate.
“Everyone who had an appointment to come and visit us between October and January canceled,” Spann said.
Ever since, it has been a daily struggle to convince customers to return and to dispel misconceptions about how much damage the fires caused to wineries. Only one in the county, Paradise Ridge in Santa Rosa, suffered extensive damage.
But descriptions by regional and national media of the “Wine Country Fires” and the seemingly endless images of wineries and vineyards menaced by flames didn’t help, he said.
“They thought every single winery and every single vineyard was burned to a crisp,” said Spann, who opened his 5,000-case Spann Vineyards in 2001 with his wife, Betsy.
Their story of struggle resonates with Beth Costa, executive director of Wine Road winery association. Despite some initial success convincing visitors to support the region after the fires, it’s been a challenging winter for many wineries, she said.
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