Petersburg Pilot -

OBI Seafoods employed about 90 local residents for the 2021 tanner crab season in an effort to prevent the possible spread of COVID-19 in the community, according to Plant Manager Nikolai Wendel.

Additionally, the production season lasted just 10 days. Any employees who would have been brought into town from outside of the community would have had to arrive two weeks prior to the season to quarantine themselves.

"To bring a crew up this early and quarantine them for two weeks for ten days worth of production didn't really make sense for us," said Wendel. "So we tried to go and hire from the lo...