EAST LIVERPOOL, Ohio — The bells at The First United Methodist Church ring out the noon hour Monday. For the longest stretch of time, it is the only sign of life along Washington Street.
Everywhere you look, the storefronts in this town are shuttered. This time, it has nothing to do with an economic downturn; it is the day after Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine closed all of the schools and ordered bars and restaurants to shut down, all an attempt to slow the spread of coronavirus.
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Outside city hall, a rental truck with voting machines is loading them into the municipal offices.
The new mayor, Greg Bricker, is considering closing the city offices to protect his firemen, police, paramedics as well as clerks — officials who keep the city functioning — and the health department workers.
He keeps his distance from the building that will be used for voting as he calmly paces back and forth, taking several calls and dialing into a conference call with the governor’s office.
By three o’clock, the governor has decided to postpone the election. The men who have been loading voting machines all day have done it all for naught. But maybe it isn’t so — soon enough, the decision will be reversed by a judge.
There are now 50 confirmed cases of COVID-19 coronavirus in the state, so far there are none reported yet here in East Liverpool or anywhere in Columbiana County. But in a city where nearly 15% of the population is over age 65, Bricker is being cautious. He points to the city hospital in the distance, a highly acclaimed but small local facility that is limited to 152 beds for a city of 11,000. Those numbers and odds are weighing on the accountant turned mayor’s mind.
“First, we needed to do a series of precautionary measures to prevent the spreading of this, so we closed the city offices to keep this from spreading to our workers but also to our citizens, because if we don’t take preventative measures, we’ll just really overwhelm our hospital and our healthcare system,” he said.
This is life in America, interrupted. Aside from the older gentleman who groused about having to pay his water bill in a slot and not in person, people were doing what they had to keep themselves and their community safe.
“The healthcare workers are really our first line of defense right now,” Bricker explains. “Anyone who has exhibited symptoms is being asked to quarantine. They have also set up drive-through testing. We’ve had a couple of people tested. And all the results have come back negative.”
The only stores open in the center city are Dollar General and Bricker’s Cafeteria and convenience store, which has a cheery hand-written sign reminding folks that their famous ham salad spread is on special and to ‘Have a Nice Day.”
The nearby Wal-Mart on Dresden Avenue is also open. At least for now, there is plenty of toilet paper and bottled water. It’s moderately busy, not at all insane.
The shiny brand new New Castle School of Trades welding class and industrial electro-mechanical technology classes, which you can usually see students doing in practice from a big picture window on the street level is shuttered, so in the nearby Kent State satellite campus.
Bobby Smith, the housing inspector for the city’s health department, is also keeping his distance, standing on the front steps of the municipal building. He says he is spending his days busy putting out fires. The retired firefighter, a mountain of a man, says his daily job is investigating buildings that are often unfit for human habitation, but he is now helping with whatever comes up in these uncertain times.
Thirty-two year old Dave Bickerton is taking paperwork from his office downtown to his home. This crisis has affected his lifestyle and his job, as it has affected most Americans. He has an investment firm, and the Dow Jones has just suffered its worst day since the “Black Monday” market crash the year he was born, plunging at one point more than 3,000 points.
“There’s a lot of gyrations in the market, a lot of volatility right now,” he says flatly. But he is advising his clients to be calm, “Which can be difficult to do sometimes. But we’re just trying to wait for things to subside and get some good news first,” he said.
His wife, Megan, is a Common Pleas Judge. Like everyone else, her court schedule is now uncertain.
On East Fifth Avenue just before you dip down to the Lincoln Highway, you find the old Potters Bank and Trust Company. The stately 19th Century building has been unoccupied for nearly two decades. It was within just weeks of finally reopening as Renovatio’s Tap Room and Restaurant.
It was the kind of development that Bricker ran on last year to bring to his hometown; a town that has been plagued with the ravages of serial economic dips for decades.
The “Coming Soon!” sign on the doors points to anticipation, promise and hope — three things most people in this country are holding onto right now.
