Storm damage brings economic windfall to Cape Girardeau area businesses

The winter storm that left much of the Bootheel, Western Kentucky and Southern Illinois without electricity brought an economic boon to Cape Girardeau.

Hotels and hardware stores in Cape Girardeau and Jackson saw a surge in business as early as Jan. 26 from residents affected by last week's storm that dumped a mixture of ice, sleet and snow. Rooms were completely full in most hotels and retailers reported long lines of people waiting to purchase such supplies as generators, chain saws and kerosene.

"We definitely saw an increase, though it's not like last February's ice storm," Townhouse Inn manager Anna Leroux said. "Normally we're full except for a couple of days during the week.

"But the storm has us completely booked since early last week. People are still calling for rooms and we don't expect it to let up anytime soon."

Leroux said guests from as far away as Blytheville, Ark., and Carbondale, Ill., stayed at one of the two Townhouse Inn locations in Cape Girardeau and Jackson. Most have been those without electricity, though a few have been utility workers.

The situation was the same at Holiday Inn Express Hotel and Suites in Cape Girardeau, where most guests escaping the storm were from the Sikeston, Mo., area.

"They were very happy to be in a hotel with electricity and couldn't wait to take a shower and warm up," general manager Karla Clifton said.

While he did not have an exact dollar amount generated from the business, John Echimovich, director of operations of the hotel division at MidAmerica Hotels Corp. in Cape Girardeau that owns Holiday Inn Express and Victoria Inn, said the storm and electricity outage added guests to an already busy week at both hotels.

"Although harsh winter storms create many challenges, it also offers an opportunity for our staff to go above and beyond for our guests," Echimovich said. "In the first 24 hours after the storm our maintenance team was able to dig out 46 cars so that our guests could get back in business."

Lisa Little, manager of Sappington Pro Outdoor in Jackson, said the business has sold about 75 8,000- to 10,000-watt generators. During the February 2008 ice storm they sold between 10 and 15 generators. Trucks from Chicago and Kansas City shipped generators throughout the week when the store's supply ran low.

"This has given us a little bit of a boon with the way the economy has been," Little said. "In the longrun it may hurt us because people will now be concentrating on their cleanup more than buying from us."

Little said the store also had trouble keeping a supply of gas jugs in stock and expected an additional shipment of 20 to arrive sometime today.

"The rush has kind of died off but we still have people calling for generators and other supplies," Little said.

Cape Girardeau Area Chamber of Commerce executive director John Mehner said that while the storm brought an abnormal amount of additional money into area businesses, he wishes the money would have generated from sources other than a natural disaster.

"This was a direct outcome of a bad situation," Mehner said. "Living off people's tragedies is not a good thing. The hotels and hardware stores are appreciative of the business but not the situation."

From his perspective last week's storm was the worst since the 24 inches of snowfall some areas received in 1979.

"When the meteorologists predicted this would be the worst winter storm in two decades they nailed it," Mehner said. "And while we didn't get it as bad as some places in the Bootheel and Western Kentucky some businesses in this area were forced to close down for a few days. What people don't understand is that those businesses may have been fine to open but their workers weren't able to report for work."

bblackwell@semissourian.com

388-3628