With today's blue skies, abundant sunshine, and low humidity, you'd never suspect that just two days ago, our area hunkered down in the face of a rare Northeast hurricane. Our city's mayor declared a state of emergency -- the first such declaration since 1986 -- as residents fended off serious flooding, power outages, fallen branches, and even a tornado.
Many Philly-area shopkeeps heeded Mayor Nutter's warnings, opting to keep their stores closed during the weekend storm. Center City shops like Briar Vintage, J.Karma, Reward, and Art Star, either closed early or stayed home completely, using their Facebook pages to alert customers of premature closings. Conversely, the King of Prussia and Willow Grove malls took to Facebook to announce they would be open yesterday (Sunday), despite the widespread flooding and known issues with SEPTA. The news spurred scoldings from Facebook fans who, concerned with the safety of both mall employees and customers, took the announcements as a sign of the malls' greed. This comment captured the essence of the online debate: "So disturbing that you decided to open at regular time (11am) when the state of emergency isn't even lifted until noon......not to mention public transportation is crippled. You are sending a CLEAR message about how you feel about safety."
Thankfully, Irene's bark was worse than her bite; store owners returning to their shops today to assess the damage found that they'd escaped the storm relatively unscathed. Manayunk's The Little Apple stayed dry, despite the fact that just down the road, Main Street has been completely engulfed by the Schuykill River. Other Philly-area stores also side-stepped serious damage: Art Star posted on Facebook, "I'm open today! Relieved (and kinda surprised) no water made it into the shop....", while Bicycle Revolutions' Bryan Vanarsdale noted that his Fabric Row bike shop is only suffering from a leak in the ceiling.
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