THE GREAT STORM OF ’96 : Icy Winds Blow Ill for West Coast

Southern Californians may be basking in sunshine, but they won’t entirely escape the ill economic winds blowing from the big blizzard back East.

The storm, which paralyzed the Atlantic Coast from Maine to Virginia on Monday, affected Los Angeles apparel companies that had to miss market week appointments in New York, business travelers who ended up stranded in St. Louis and movie studios that saw box-office receipts in some towns plummet Sunday.

Airlines and overnight delivery firms canceled virtually all service from Los Angeles to major East Coast destinations Monday. They hoped to resume service by today.

The Pacific Stock Exchange shortened its hours Monday, following the lead of the New York Stock Exchange.

But other businesses were able to tough out the situation. Bank of America’s Manhattan-based unit, which handles payments and processing for the bank’s international accounts, operated at the World Trade Center with a skeleton staff, putting some employees up in hotels for the night.

The New York asset management unit of Los Angeles-based SunAmerica Inc. closed its offices early.

And executives working on Wells Fargo Bank’s hostile takeover bid for First Interstate Bancorp were able to reach financial advisors in New York on Monday, but in several cases had to call them at home.

The storm that dumped nearly 2 feet of snow in New York City by Monday closed businesses, curtailed activity in major financial markets, shut down major airports and brought most East Coast commerce to a halt.

With a huge concentration of population, the Eastern Seaboard accounts for 5% to 10% of the economic activity in California, said Ted Gibson, chief economist at the state Department of Finance.

If the weather causes any extended disruption in those ties, “it is obviously going to cause a ripple effect,” said Jack Kyser, chief economist at the Economic Development Corp. of Los Angeles County.

The heavy snowfall was hampering efforts by El Segundo-based Mattel Inc. to ship its toys by rail and truck to warehouses and retailers on the East Coast, spokeswoman Karen Stewart said.

Linda Jordan, one of the owners of the women’s sportswear maker Blair Tops Inc. in South El Monte, spent much of her weekend frantically calling to arrange transportation to New York, where the apparel industry was scheduled to gather to sell its spring and summer lines to major retailers. She never made it.

“For California, which is noted as a spring-summer [apparel] manufacturer, it is much more devastating not to be in New York,” she said.

The market week is being postponed to later in the month. But Jordan said the delay could give an advantage to her New York-based competitors.

Moreover, the bad weather will probably hurt retail sales in the East, and that will leave retailers with less cash to buy new inventory, Jordan said.

For the movie industry, bad weather on Sunday meant a drop in box-office receipts. Nikki Rocco, an executive vice president for distribution with Universal Pictures, said through a spokeswoman that the bad weather will cost the industry between $2.5 million and $3.5 million in lost revenues in East Coast theaters.

Severe weather also prevented The Times from publishing the 3,000 copies of its Washington edition Monday, which is normally circulated in New York and the nation’s capital. The Times will publish that edition today.

Meanwhile, business travelers headed out of Los Angeles International Airport to destinations in the East found themselves without flights, or in some cases bound for cities midway between the coasts.

American Airlines canceled all flights to New York, Washington, Newark, N.J., and other Atlantic destinations, a total of more than 1,000 flights from Sunday through this morning. The airline said it had made more than 50,000 calls to advise passengers of the delays.

TWA canceled all four nonstop flights from LAX to New York on Monday, a spokesman said.

The airport closures affected shipment of freight as well. United Parcel Service could not fly packages from the West Coast to its East Coast hub of Philadelphia or to any other East Coast airport.

Rail and truck transportation was also disrupted in the East, and that will ripple to the West Coast in a few days.

Times staff writer Thomas S. Mulligan contributed to this report.