VALLEJO, CA - Western Dovetail, Inc., hit August 24 by the Napa County earthquake, must now relocate. Owners Josh and Max Hunter were preparing to return from exhibiting at IWF 2014 in Atlanta the day the earthquake struck.

Now the two are laying out plans to move from their historic building in Vallejo, CA, and seek earthquake relief online. The building has been tagged as uninhabitable by county authorities.

Western Dovetail employs 23 in its production operations. Without access to its dedicated equipment has slowed operations, and required 100+ hours of overtime a week to meet customer orders, says president Max Hunter. 

"Currently we have 23,000 square feet at 1155 Nimitz, about 15,000 square feet of storage (106A) and an additional 5,000 square feet of R and D (bldg. 136) for a total of 43,000 square feet," Max says. He has laid out a plan at Facebook for relocating to a new site, once it has been selected.

Max Hunter also posted this message to customers:

As you may be aware, the West Napa Earthquake that rattled our area early Sunday morning, August 24th and caused some serious damage to our building. While our building sustained structural damage, the machinery and lumber were still intact, and we were able to recover all work in progress and finished product. We have already completed and shipped most orders that were in progress and we are working on new orders now. Our staff have worked tirelessly over the last week to move into a shop nearby, and we are back on-line making drawers. Deliveries are running daily and we are fulfilling all orders as promised.

All communications are up and running, we can take your emails, calls and faxes and we are processing orders normally. Lead time is currently at 2 weeks, but we may be able to expedite some orders. Send your orders and inquiries to [email protected]

We're grateful to all of you who have helped us through this trying time, and to those of you who have offered help. When we have a new shop, we will be needing lots more help getting set up. Please limit phone calls unless it is necessary or you need to check on an order. Thank you for your patience as we get through this. We will have a new shop soon, but in the mean time we are operating from a temporary location thanks to a friendly neighbor who has let us use his shop. Please continue to place orders and pay your bill, we need the business to keep moving. Unfortunately, we didn't have earthquake coverage in our insurance policy as it was prohibitavely expensive. This means that we have to cover all of the costs of this disaster on our own. At this time, there is no disaster relief funds available to us. We are told that it will be several weeks before we get any answers, and it is unlikely that we will get much help from the government.

Check our Facebook page for regular updates: www.facebook.com/westerndovetailinc

We are accepting donations on our website at www.drawer.com Look for the donate now button in the upper left corner of our website.