After severe storms left thousands of Lake Highlands Oncor customers without power last week, several local businesses dealt with lost profits, battered storefronts and how to best support the community during the disaster.
Underdog Restaurant and Sports Club
Ross Edinboro, owner of the recently opened Underdog Restaurant and Sports Club at Skillman St. and Abrams Rd, said his bar lost considerable business last Tuesday during an outage as the Dallas Mavericks looked to close out a sweep against the Minnesota Timberwolves in Game 4 of the NBA Western Conference Finals.
“We couldn’t open up for the Mavs game, which was terrible,” Edinboro said. “That’s huge for us, we’ve been packing the house for those games, I lost a whole night.”
Past Tuesday’s game, which the Mavericks narrowly lost 105-100, Edinboro said the storm continued to affect his business for much of the following week.
“Everybody was still in recovery mode,” Edinboro said. “You know, the neighborhood, lots of trees down and things like that and people clearing out their yard. So people weren’t really coming out like they were, especially during these, you know, we maximize we can get out of these playoffs. So it affected us the whole week.”
Brumley Gardens
Brumley Gardens lost power Tuesday morning, regained it Thursday evening, then lost it again shortly during the weekend storms. Management says damage was minimal despite damage to plants and signage blown away.
“There were a couple of plants damaged in the storm with the wind,” said Retail Manager Catherine Christenson. “Three of our arbors were blown down, a lot of signage was blown off the fence, it was kind of a wind tunnel coming through here if you will. Mainly just lots of plants blown down. I would say we only lost maybe 10 to 15 varieties of plants.”
After spending what she estimated to be close to four hours getting the garden center back in order, Christenson said there were quite a few neighbors coming in to replace plants damaged in the storms.
The Rooster
The Rooster Home and Hardware store lost power for a day and a half. But don’t worry, the chicks are OK and had plenty of food and water. After reopening, General Manager Mark Cerino said chainsaws, batteries, battery operated fans and battery operated light bulbs were among the highest selling items. Cerino said that The Rooster is here to support the community.
“We’re here to provide any kind of help in any kind of service for our community,” Cerino said. “Because they’re our main supporters here. But we do have everything in stock now. You know, we have fertilizers, weed killers, we have stuff for insects, as far as organic, if you want to get rid of them organically, but we’re just about have everything back in stock that’s needed to help you get through this emergency, if you will, that we’ve had recently.”
