Electric generators selling like hot cakes

MARK MINTON ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE

Every time a truck hauling electric generators pulls into The Home Depot store in west Little Rock, a lottery scene breaks out in the aisles. A crowd of hopeful buyers presses forward, all clutching slips of paper while a store employee standing on a countertop calls numbers into a microphone. "G-14," employee Sean Cunningham called out Thursday morning. "G-15, G-16...." No one bids on the gasoline-powered generators, which all sell for the same price. But demand has been so relentless in the wake of the latest ice storm that the store has been issuing numbers to customers and selling the machines via the staccato patter of the clerk with the microphone.

Since the first forecasts predicted the Christmas Day ice storm, The Home Depot on Chenal Parkway has sold nearly 3,000 generators, assistant manager Dennis Patrick estimated. The Home Depot in North Little Rock also has been selling generators as soon as they arrive, though not with the same lottery-like drama, said a store manager who added that demand was equally heavy for chain saws, electrical cords and kerosene.

In Little Rock, The Home Depot store has been issuing numbers since Tuesday to manage the lines of customers anxious to buy a generator. There were several models, all priced in the vicinity of $500. On Wednesday, Patrick said, buyers filled four aisles. Some waited from 8 a.m. until 9 p.m. for the chance to buy one of the machines. At 11 a.m. Thursday, Cunningham was working rapid-fire through the machines in the latest truckload while word filtered through a line of at least 50 buyers that the next delivery was said to be due about 12:30 p.m. from Memphis. One more truck was en route from Nebraska, Patrick said, and more deliveries were expected today. "My buyers are scouring the country," he said. Waiting in line, Harry Dunavant of Little Rock said he planned to buy generators for himself and his parents in Hot Springs Village, who are also without power. Beverly Milford of Little Rock was hoping to get a generator before relatives, including a 6-month-old grandson, arrived from Charlotte later in the day. "We had kerosene," she said, "but everyone's out of kerosene." Herbert Gill of Alexander said he and his wife, Karen, who have been staying at a friend's house, decided to buy a generator when they learned their power may not be restored until Jan. 6. "It's cold," Herbert Gill said -- no condition for the couple's 3-year-old grandchild.

Outside, Bill Permenter tried to squeeze his new 5,000-watt generator, about the size of a two-drawer filing cabinet, into the trunk of his sedan, which was slightly smaller. After three days without electricity and a two-hour wait for the generator, Permenter was more than a little exasperated. But the prospects were not all bleak, said an employee who stopped to help Permenter hoist the generator into the back seat. There was the possibility of resale. "If you stand here very long," the employee said, "you'll make $100, $200 off it."

http://www.ardemgaz.com/today/ark/B1xgenerator29.html

This article was published on Friday, December 29, 2000

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), December 29, 2000