Hawaiian boat tour owner is “carefully rebuilding” after tsunami damage
Hawaiian boat tour owner is “carefully rebuilding” after tsunami damage
New data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that year over year, Hawaii saw the greatest drop in its unemployment rate of any state last month. In December of 2020, 10.3% of Hawaiians were out of a job as the pandemic continued to ravage the tourism industry. Around that time, business at the boat tour company Sea Quest Hawaii, which Manu Powers and her husband run in Kona, was down about 95%.
“Marketplace” host Kai Ryssdal checked in with Powers, whose business was also recently affected by the Tonga tsunami about a week and a half ago. The following is an edited transcript of their conversation.
Kai Ryssdal: First of all, you have tsunami damage from this Tongan volcano?
Manu Powers: That’s correct. We had substantial tsunami damage, as a matter of fact.
Ryssdal: Well, tell me more.
Powers: So we sustained around $100,000 — a little north of $100,000 — worth of damage. We had no sirens like we typically do. And the notification that came from the county said, “Everything’s going to be fine. These are going to be minor waves.” We got a call from a friend who said, “It looks like you may have sustained some damage in your office.” So we sort of nonchalantly made our way down to the bay, and then discovered our office had been completely destroyed with the exception of the structure itself.
Ryssdal: My goodness. What does $100,000 mean to your business?
Powers: Well, $100,000 really hurts us right now. Omicron is hitting us pretty hard. We’re already way down. We’re about 30% of what we typically would be this time of year. So we’re going to just very carefully try to build the business back being as frugal as possible. Obviously, we’re not going to be restocking all the inventory that we lost. We just found out today that we do not qualify for the [Federal Emergency Management Agency] threshold for money to help us build back. But they offered us [a Small Business Administration], which is the last thing I want after COVID. You know, I’m up to here with SBA loans currently.
Ryssdal: But look, and not to take too serious a turn here, but every time you and I have spoken over the past year — and this is the third conversation — you are remarkably positive about the prospects once you turn things around. But you keep getting whacked. And I guess my question is, as a small-business person who hasn’t caught a break in two years, and you’re one of a zillion in this economy, how much longer can you hang on?
Powers: It’s a good question. As a matter of fact, when we first bought Sea Quest, we said to ourselves, “OK, we’ve got a 15-year plan.” And then it was a 10-year plan. And now we’re down to a five-year plan. And my husband and I are looking at each other going, “We’ve got to get out of this business.” But we feel really fortunate that we get to work together, you know, doing something that we love in a place that we just love so very much. And so you take the good with the bad. It just seems like over the last couple of years, there’s been a lot of bad.
Ryssdal: You know, it occurs to me that a lot of tourism-based businesses in Hawaii have been having a tough couple years. I haven’t heard of anybody else getting hit by this tsunami. Are you, like, cursed somehow or what?
Powers: Well, you know, when you put it that way. We really are the only business that took any substantial damage. There was a hotel down the street that in the lobby got flooded to a minor degree, you know, the carpets got wet. They had no business interruption. It really was just us. But again, it could have been so much worse. We’re so fortunate the boats were intact and nobody got hurt.
Ryssdal: Omicron is, one hopes, on the downside, certainly here on the mainland. How are your bookings looking in the next like 90 days?
Powers: Bleak. And it’s really surprising to us, as a matter of fact, because right behind me in the bay here in Kona is the third cruise ship that’s been here in the past couple of years. You know, we see some signs of a rebound, obviously. But the hotels are not full, and typically January and February are two of the busiest months of the year. So we’re hoping to see some sort of meaningful recovery, some sort of consistency, because how else are we supposed to operate?
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