I don’t know if we are the typical Port Townsend family of four. We own a house here. We have a business here. Our kids go to the public schools, participate in sports. We are involved with Jefferson County 4H and the Girls Boat Project. We did all those things and more until the third week in March when Governor Inslee declared a state of emergency, sent everyone home, and everything stopped.

It was a busy time. We ceased operations at our successful business of twenty years that was now deemed non-essential. Our entire staff, six long-term employees, were put on standby effective immediately. All but unavoidable expenses were cut, including our paychecks, in an effort to keep the business on life support until…when? Nobody was saying for sure. We heard a couple of weeks, a couple of months, a couple of years.

I spent the first week contacting county, state, and federal representatives letting them know about the serious damage being done to small business in Jefferson County. I was also searching for a letter or waiver that would allow us to continue running a business that had always been essential to my family. Without the employees we now couldn’t afford, we could operate within Center for Disease Control, Wuhan Covid Virus protocols. The few orders still trickling in came via Internet or phone. They were processed by one person, my wife, the owner, at our office, and then shipped via USPS or UPS. All other details were managed remotely, including evenings with the family gathered around the kitchen table, sorting, bagging and labeling product.

When I heard back from the governor, it was a form email stating he was too busy to reply.  When I heard back from the few local and state representatives that did reply, they told me the governor wasn’t returning their phone calls. They suggested we, “Do what we need to do”

At home we went through the same process, all spending cut except food, and utilities. We applied to our bank for forbearance on our mortgage, this put off monthly payments for six months. We did whatever could be done, to stretch what we had, for a long as possible with the plan that if we could keep the business afloat, we might be able to earn an income again somewhere down the road.

I became the person who went out for groceries once a week. My wife and two daughters stayed home. We had no contact with or physical proximity to anyone other than to say “hello” to friends and neighbors who might be out in their yards or passing by while walking around town.

I am not a teacher. I struggled with schooling for my sixteen and thirteen year old daughters. I had my doubts regarding the switch to online schooling. The sudden closure seemed to leave the teachers in the unenviable position of figuring out how to do this on their own. It seems that the bugs are being worked out. My kids do their assigned work such as it is, and have adapted effortlessly to Internet instruction and Zoom meetings. Regardless, they miss the interaction of a classroom. Their teachers tell us the same.

As a family we discuss this wild experience every day. We debate the economic shut down. We debate the latest news regarding the virus. We debate the mask/no mask protocol, and are pretty sure the people driving their cars around town solo with masks on and windows rolled up will be just fine after all this is over. We debate why the young and healthy who are not affected by the virus aren’t allowed to re-start an economy while the older folks and others who are at risk stay at home. Most sadly we debate the fate of our town as event after event is cancelled and a business like Aldrich’s closes. We ponder who, or what, will be lost next. We are learning not to be surprised.

We exercise as a family just about every day, usually in the evening, often walking along Water Street. Our commercial district is a ghost town. The only thing missing are tumbleweeds.

As I walk the empty streets I think about the chatter on social media that Port Townsend shouldn’t be in a hurry to re-open. The idea being if everyone–owners, employees, landlords–are doing okay with government grants and unemployment, then we should take our time. As a family invested in the vitality of this place, we hope this isn’t true.

Yes, we all bought in on some level to the stay-at-home concept so as not to overload our health care system. Historic precedents were provided. Yet even during the Spanish Flu of 1918, with the exceptions of theaters and dance halls, businesses were not forced to close.

I was impressed, to say the least, by the government’s ability to arbitrarily shut whole sectors of our economy in an instant. I am less impressed, and I will admit downright befuddled, when this same government, all the way down to local city councils, doesn’t seem to have the appetite or the ability to get it back up and running.

For my family the path to our recovery will be paved by a strong economy. For the sake of all families in this town, present and future, we have to find a way to keep all businesses open while we deal with this pandemic, or the next one. It has been my experience over the last few weeks that government can’t do this for us. Instead, we have to show government we can do it for ourselves. The longer we wait, the higher the price to be paid by future generations.

Brett Nunn

Brett Nunn has spent the last two decades in Port Townsend’s Uptown, raising a family, volunteering at local schools and wandering the outdoors. He writes about survival, community and culture. He is the author of the book, “Panic Rising: True-Life Survivor Tales from the Great Outdoors.”