Because they serve as a lifeline to returning residents, many parish businesses did their best to open up as quickly as possible after Hurricane Gustav left 90 percent of the parish without power.
Hartman’s True Value Hardware was among the first businesses to open up on Wednesday, the day that the parish allowed residents to officially return from evacuation. Since that time, the hardware store has been bursting with customers.
“It has been extremely busy,” Faye Hartman said. “We had three employees on Wednesday and now all of our employees are back. We are getting people serviced and getting them out of here quickly.”
Hartman says that the store sold a variety of items after the storm, but a lot of the purchases were of propane tanks, gas cans, extension cords, batteries, tarps and fans.
“The parish has been great to us,” Hartman said. “We are the only local hardware store so we knew that we had to open up and help people keep their houses dry and get their trees cut down.”
Hartman also says a lot of the store’s business is coming from Houma.
“After Katrina, we were going to Houma to get things,” she said. “Now, they are coming to us.”
Another important opening was Majoria’s Supermarket. Co-owner Shea Majoria says that his store has been extremely busy since it opened last Thursday. He also has had his fair share of problems.
“We were powered by a generator and on Thursday a panel blew so we had to close after three hours,” he said. “On Friday, we were open for five hours and we blew out a server on the computer. I have come to realize that generators are not good for running computers.”
Even with those problems, Majoria feels that his store was able to offer residents some much-needed items.
“We were the first grocery store to open, and yeah everybody’s trying to make money, but it was more important for us to get open and help people get things back to normal,” he said.
Cashio’s Food Villa in Destrehan also opened on Sept. 4.
“We opened as soon as power came back on and it was very busy,” store manager Jackie Mizell said. “We had to get back and open up to help people get going.”
Store owner Linda Cashio agrees.
“Everybody needs food items and we want to help them get back to normal as soon as possible,” she said.
Scoops, a Destrehan ice cream and snowball store, was one of the first businesses to get back on its feet.
“We opened on Tuesday and have been busier than ever before,” Katelyn Benedetto said. “On Friday, people were in here constantly from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m.”
Scoops only lost power for a couple of hours during the storm, but still lost 20 ice creams. Benedetto says that Councilman Larry Cochran came by the store and hooked up a generator, which saved the rest.
“Our normal ice cream company wasn’t delivering so we had to get our ice cream special delivered in order to stay open,” Benedetto said.
While food, gas and hardware stores serve the necessities that people need after a storm, a couple other businesses opened up just to give people a break from making those purchases.
The Basketry, which still had plenty of online orders to fill, opened last Thursday.
“We sent an email out and everything is going great,” Kristi Brocato, owner of The Basketry, said. “People have come in and said how good this makes them feel because of everything they are going through. In fact, we had a lady come in and she said that The Basketry comes before bread and milk for her.”
The Basketry is also offering a 10 percent sale on thank you gifts through Sept. 13 for those that want to show their appreciation to anyone who has helped them through this trying time.
“We just wanted to be here for the people who wanted to escape cleanup and get some normalcy back,” Brocato said.
Plur opened up on Saturday to give Saints fans a chance to buy some Fleur-de-lis merchandise before the game.
“I also thought people needed a break,” Plur’s owner, Jenny Burch said. “They have been shopping for groceries and I felt like they would want to buy something for themselves, like clothes.”
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