Many store owners are awaiting damage estimates.
By Carol Coultas
Business Writer

LEWISTON – Shopkeepers along Lisbon and Canal streets Tuesday were dealing with the aftermath of Monday’s explosion, trying to replace shattered windows and assess structural damage.

“All I know right now is, it’s not going to be cheap,” said Marty Roop, owner of the building at 95 Lisbon St., the home of Drapeau’s Costume Rentals. The blast from a late afternoon explosion at nearby Lewiston Radiator Works shook the store so severely that five rows of shelves holding props and supplies in a back room came crashing down.

The costume rental had three storefront windows damaged; one was shattered entirely and two others had cracks that were stitched together with duct tape by Tuesday afternoon. Roop was waiting on an estimate from Champion Glass to find out what the repair will cost.

He had lots of company. Windows were shattered at Final Harvest, Camera Service Center, Ilona’s, the empty J.J. Newberry’s building, Terry’s Bridal Fashion, Samson Furniture and others.

Susan Mitchell, co-owner of Camera Service Center, was waiting on an estimate to fix a spider-web crack on a storefront window, but decided to postpone the actual repair work until Friday to avoid the worst of the Arctic blast expected Thursday.

“It has to be made to order because of its size and thickness,” said Mitchell. “And we don’t want to have the store open in that cold.”

A smaller window on the second floor was to be replaced immediately. Mitchell said the force of the blast was so strong it tore the casing from the upstairs window as well as blowing out the glass.

“It felt like someone had picked up the store and dropped it,” she said of Monday’s explosion. “I could hear glass crashing everywhere.”

Bob Cedre, men’s line manager at Terry’s Bridal Fashion, is also waiting for an estimate. He uses Sunrise Glass, which has worked on his special, curved display case windows in the past. He has no idea what it will cost to repair one of the specialty windows.

“They don’t make windows like this any more,” said Cedre. He said the process to create an exact fit requires heating glass to the point where it will curve to the specific dimensions.

City officials were surveying downtown buildings Tuesday, but there was no estimate of the overall cost of the damage. Lincoln Jeffers, deputy director of economic development, said the city has no contingency fund to help businesses make repairs, nor has it had any requests for one. Insurance policies generally cover the cost of this type of repair.

Bates Mill No. 5, the building closest to Lewiston Radiator Works, suffered no perceptible damage.

Allan Turgeon, property manager at the mill complex, said he surveyed the building with a structural engineer Tuesday and found no evidence of any interior damage, although the exterior brick was singed from the ensuing fire. The building didn’t even have a cracked window.

“It’s a well-built, rugged, old structure,” said Turgeon. “It was built to handle a tremendous amount of load capacity. With 300 looms running at once, the building would hum.”