Last year as Thad Hauschild watched the terrible events of Sept. 11 unfold, he could not help worrying that his sales of recreational vehicles would plummet.
“We kind of thought, `Oh boy. Wow.' Not only was it a terrible thing, but we were in real trouble,” said Mr. Hauschild, president of Toledo RV, Inc., just north of Wauseon.
Much to his surprise, however, the terrorist tragedy gave a boost to the whole recreational-vehicle industry as well as sellers of fireplaces, flags, security services, and almost anything in red, white, and blue - even as sales fell at many businesses.
At Myers Hearth & Casual on Reynolds Road, store manager Lori Fletcher wrote off the natural gas fireplaces that make up much of her business as a luxury likely to be foregone in uncertain times.
“I really just thought everybody would hold onto their money and see what happens,'' she remembered thinking on Sept. 11, 2001.
What appeared to happen, however, was local residents who canceled fall trips en masse spent some of that money instead on fireplaces - a comfort measure they could enjoy at home with their families. Firewood dealers, who reported higher than usual sales in November even as the weather was warmer than usual, had also credited Sept. 11 last year for a want of comfort and fears of threats to utilities.
The terrorist events a year ago appeared to save the recreational vehicle industry from what had started out as a very poor year.
After the events of one morning soaked in to a stunned nation, suddenly the idea of driving a recreational vehicle to parks and other rural attractions seemed like a much better bet than flying to people much younger than the industry's typical market of 55 to 75-year-olds.
“You go to places there's not likely to be problems,” Mr. Hauschild of Toledo RV said. “No delays.”
He had almost canceled a recreational vehicle show in mid-September, thinking that it wasn't the right time to market recreational vehicles that typically range from $10,000 to $80,000.
“It was probably one of the most successful September shows we ever had,” he said.
The 148 truckloads of mail that Titan Scan Technologies in Lima irradiated for the U.S. Postal Service were one of the most talked about effects of Sept. 11 on business in the region.
But the work, undertaken in the wake of anthrax mailings, did not have a significant effect on the $1.3 billion in sales recorded last year by its parent Titan Corp., based in San Diego, said spokesman Wil Williams.
In Lima, however, 10 people were hired for about five months - doubling employment - while Titan sterilized the mail instead of its usual work with medical equipment.
Right after Sept. 11, 2001 sales of firearms, gas masks, and ready-to-eat military-style meals spiked at Woodville Surplus in suburban Oregon.
The store sold out of some types of ammunition. But the effect was short-lived and far less profitable than the much longer-running Y2K scare.
Matt Cleland, a manager at Cleland's Outdoor World in Monclova Township, said Sept. 11 didn't make a significant impact on his sales, but at the much smaller ADCO Firearms in Sylvania, sales after that day were up 150 percent for at least three months compared with the same time the previous year, owner Chuck Adkins said.
First Published September 12, 2002, 11:22 a.m.