flood recovery donation

July 29th, 2022

Dearest Friends and Neighbors,
Left Bank Books took not one, but two hits from the catastrophic floods the week of July 25th that blasted through St. Louis. The first one overnight Tuesday, July 26th we were able to clean up ourselves. Thursday's afternoon surprise, on July 28th, not so much. In the middle of the day, storm sewer water burst forth through the 4 drains in our lower level offices and quickly flooded the entire lower level including the sales floor where you browse new and used books. We ran around moving things to higher ground as quickly as we could, but in less than 20 minutes we were wading through 6 inches of water.

The booksellers you know and love have been working tirelessly to salvage and clean and move things to safety. Obviously we have taken a loss, though I can't say yet how bad. We've lost books, fixtures, carpet, supplies, and critical revenue. It will take a while to know how much. We have insurance that will cover half of our estimated losses. 

The good news is, we will recover. The good news is, we are now open for business on the first floor and you can always order online 24/7. If Covid was good for anything at all, it was that we discovered how resilient and smart we are when it comes to solving problems. Please be patient with us and try to flow with us as we bring our store back to being fully operational. 

We sincerely hope you have fared well during this time. We know this is a challenging time. Remember that now more than ever, supporting locally owned businesses is critically important to the health of our St. Louis economy. The roads, the first responders, and all that urban infrastructure we depend on, depends on our tax dollars.

Finally, since you are wondering, our sweet new kitty, Orleans, has survived and is resting quite comfortably at the home of one of our booksellers.

Stay tuned and check our social media or website for updates of our rebuilding process. Our author events are taking place as originally planned, in-store and off-site. We are deeply grateful for anything you can do to help us get up and fully running again.

In gratitude and books,
Kris Kleindienst, owner
on behalf of Amanda, Danielle, Amber, Randy, Shane, Cliff, Andrea, Chris, Jim, Anthony, Jeff, Alicia, Evan, Kali, Baeyle, Bri, Gabe, Princess and Orleans