Cold weather boosts D.C. business during Inauguration

WASHINGTON — Harry Dest, his wife Ouida and their 7-year-old daughter Hunter were bracing for… WASHINGTON — Harry Dest, his wife Ouida and their 7-year-old daughter Hunter were bracing for the worst.

They had three standing-room-only tickets to Barack Obama’s Presidential presidential Inauguration inauguration swearing-in ceremony Tuesday on the West Lawn of the Capitol building.

And it was 23 degrees, according to the National Weather.

So, the Dests, who are from Fort Mill, S.C., where the temperature stays above freezing during the winter months, said they spent $300 on cold-weather gear for the inauguration.

Local retailers stocked up for visitors like the Dests, and the influx of people in Washington and the dropping temperature boosted business this week.

‘We’re trying to do the best we can by buying as much stuff before we came up here,’ Harry Dest said the night before the Inauguration.

‘It’s a jacket for me, boots for [Hunter], scarves, gloves, hand warmers,’ Ouida Dest said.

The official estimates on retail revenue during the four-day inauguration weekend aren’t in yet, Chris Knudson, the senior vice president of marketing and communications at the D.C. Chamber of Commerce, said Wednesday. But the Chamber of Commerce expects good news from businesses.

It had originally estimated $700 million to $1 billion worth of business taking place during the inauguration festivities, Knudson said.

‘Now,’ he said, ‘we think it’ll exceed that.’

Harry Dest ran through the family’s checklist for the big day: They planned to arrive at a Metro stop close to the National Mall no later than 6 a.m. Then, they would find their spot to stand and wait for the ceremony to commence at 11:30 a.m.

That meant the Dests, like much of the rest of the crowd, stood outside for hours on a day that never warmed to more than 29 degrees and was as cold as 16 degrees at times.

Neal Downing, a real estate appraiser from Largo, Md., capitalized on the situation.

‘I’m selling hand warmers, trying to keep America warm,’ he said at the U Street Metro Station Monday night as he distributed HotHands hand warmer packets he kept in a plastic bag to a group of four women.

He said he had ordered 640 pairs of handwarmers from the HeatMax company to sell during Inauguration inauguration weekend. He said he sold 500 on Monday for $2 each, and planned to get more Tuesday morning from a friend.

Kevin Luong, an assistant manager at CVS on 8th Street, four blocks from the Mall, saw similar sales of hand warmers. He said the store stocks gloves, hats, and hand and toe warmers for the winter.

‘We sold out on Inauguration inauguration Day day in the afternoon,’ he said Wednesday, estimating that his store sold a few hundred hand warmers from Monday evening through Tuesday night. ‘As for gloves and hats, we had just a few left.’

The store charges 99 cents more for a two-pack of hand warmers than Downing’s price. One toe warmer pack sold for $1.99.

‘CVS was crowded like a supermarket yesterday, even in the morning,’ he added. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it.’

Knudson said retailers across the city experienced heightened business this week.

‘Today [the Chamber’s] president [Barbara Land] was at Macy’s at Metro Center, and the store was practically cleaned out from the weekend,’ he added.

He said that many visitors to the city had been unprepared for the cold weather, and businesses had sold large amounts of cold-weather gear like hats, gloves and long johns.

‘There were two things people were concerned about — one was snow, which we fortunately didn’t get, and the other thing was the cold,’ he said. Businesses ‘anticipated that it would be cold and people would be outside for long periods of time.’