Boyd,
Thank you for your comments. I found the following article at <cigaraficionado.com>.
cheers
-Scot
Hurricane Strikes Cigar Country
Hurricane Georges cut straight across the Dominican Republic this week, disrupting and damaging some of the country's cigar companies. The storm killed more than 300 people across the Caribbean--none of them in the cigar industry, according to sketchy reports--and caused damages approaching $3 billion. When this story was last updated, at 11 a.m. on Saturday, Georges was churning across the Gulf of Mexico toward the Alabama and Louisiana coast.
Most of the cigar makers in the Dominican Republic were spared significant damage, and there was no damage to the tobacco crop, because tobacco isn't grown in the Dominican Republic this time of year. An exception was Consolidated Cigar Corp., one of the world's biggest producers of cigars, whose facilities were hit hard by the storm. Unlike most Dominican manufacturers, which are located in the interior city of Santiago, Consolidated makes its cigars in La Romana, a town near the southeastern tip of the country. The storm hit La Romana first on its trek across the Dominican Republic, packing powerful winds of 110 miles per hour.
The roof of Consolidated's tobacco warehouse in La Romana was damaged by the storm, and tobacco has been damaged by water. Despite sandbagging the perimeter of the cigar plant in preparation, water infiltrated the cigar factory as well, and finished cigars that were ready to be shipped were damaged by the elements. Phone lines are still down across the Dominican Republic, and power is out, so the information coming from the cigar plants remains sketchy. Consolidated doesn't have a full assessment of the situation yet--the only information the company had came from one phone call made by a worker who traveled from La Romana to Santo Domingo to place a phone call to Consolidated's headquarters in Florida.
"We're not going to be making cigars there for awhile," said James L. Colucci, senior vice president of sales and marketing for Consolidated. "This whole weekend is shot."
Colucci said the cigar facility is structurally sound, but he wasn't sure how many of his workers had lost their homes. Across the Dominican Republic, which suffered the worst damages from the storm, more than 210 were confirmed dead, 800 were missing and feared dead, and an estimated 300,000 were homeless. Leonel Fernandez, president of the Dominican Republic, called the hurricane a "national tragedy," according to the New York Times.
Litto Gomez, a co-owner of La Flor Dominicana, said the impact to his factory in Tamboril was minimal. Some workers even showed up for work the day after the hurricane struck. Executives from Tabacalera A. Fuente y Cia. also said that its factory went unscathed.
Chateau de la Fuente, the farm where Fuente Fuente OpusX wrappers are grown, wasn't as lucky. The farm is located about an hour and a half southeast of Santiago, and was savaged by the storm. Fuente lost all of its casas del tabaco, or curing barns, in the hurricane. The barns (which numbered at least 15) were empty because it's not tobacco growing season, but they take time and money to replace. The cost of replacing those tobacco barns will run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, according to Wayne Suarez, a Fuente executive.
"The farm got hit real hard," Suarez said. "Thank God nobody was hurt. We'll rebuild and go on."
The royal palm trees that used to tower over the tobacco fields at Chateau de la Fuente speak to the severity of the storm. Several were uprooted, while others were snapped in half like toothpicks. Suarez said those trees had stood undisturbed for 30 years. The pine trees that dot the mountain behind the farm were also damaged.
Hendrik Kelner, the maker of Avo and Davidoff cigars, also grows wrapper tobacco in the Dominican Republic. Kelner could not be reached for comment. Tyrell Conner, spokeswoman for Davidoff of Geneva, the importer of Davidoff and Avo cigars, said she had not been able to reach Kelner, and had no information.
Consolidated was also hurt in Puerto Rico, which was hit before the Dominican Republic. The company makes machine-made cigars in Puerto Rico, and without power it cannot make cigars. Colucci said the company would probably lose one week's production due to the storm.
-David Savona
|
