Local businesses assess Katrina's damages

Several southwest Missouri businesses are feeling the effects, both directly and indirectly, of the devastation in the Gulf Coast.

Palace Casino Resort

Robert Low of Springfield-based Prime Inc. also owns Palace Casino Resort in Biloxi, Miss. The building was heavily damaged by the storm, though exact estimates on the cost or the extent of the damage to the facility are not yet available.

Low and a team of Prime staff members Sept. 3 flew to Biloxi to assess the casino’s damages and to help other Prime employees distribute supplies to those in need.

“As we landed and drove through the neighborhoods of Biloxi, we realized the truly disastrous effect of Hurricane Katrina,” Low said in a message on Prime’s Web site. “The pictures in the news and on the Internet do not tell the true story of the extent of loss.”

The nearly $100 million casino was completed in 2001. A temporary office has been set up in Ocean Springs, Miss., to handle administrative duties and payroll administration for the casino.

The company has also posted job openings in its Springfield offices, available to displaced Palace workers, on its Web site, www.primeinc.com.

O’Reilly Auto Parts

Six stores in the O’Reilly Auto Parts chain remained closed as of Sept. 6, according to Greg Henslee, co-president and CEO. Henslee called the Gulfport, Miss., store “pretty much a total loss.”

Others were flooded and will need to be cleaned and have drywall replaced. Some of the closed stores, Henslee said, are ready to reopen but are waiting for the go-ahead from area authorities.

While the stores themselves sustained relatively minor damage, Henslee said the store took a major hit in its ability to gather information.

“There are significant data problems down there, and we simply don’t have data communications to some stores. We also don’t have telephone service to some of the stores,” Henslee said. “That doesn’t hurt corporate infrastructure, but it does make things like making orders to distribution centers harder, and some of our (point of sale) systems work better with high-speed data communications. It’s certainly a lot more workable and convenient when we have those things, but we can do business without it.”

The company also has yet to hear from some of its employees, though Henslee said most are in areas where telephone service is spotty at best.

Henslee and other company officials flew down to the region Sept. 7 to get their first personal look at the damage. He said the area is completely devastated.

“There are houses gone off their foundations, cars and trucks piled on top of each other from the storm surge – it’s just catastrophic damage up and down the coastline,” he said. “We’re very fortunate that our stores fared as well as they did.”

While exact damage estimates are not available yet, Henslee said repair costs would not have a significant impact on the company.

Bass Pro Shops

The storm temporarily slowed construction of a Gulf Coast-area Bass Pro Shops store.

Larry Whiteley, spokesman for the Springfield-based hunting and fishing retailer, said the Pearl, Miss., construction site itself was not damaged, but there is a lack of available workers. Pearl is 150 miles north of the coastline.

“Some of the guys working on (the Pearl site) left the job to take care of their homes, of course,” he said. “It might have delayed work a little, but they’re back on schedule now – they’ve even hired some of the refugees to help work on that store.”

Bass Pro recently began to tap the Gulf Coast market. Bass Pro plans to build stores in Denham Springs, La., less than 100 miles northwest of New Orleans, and in Spanish Fort, Ala., on the outskirts of Mobile. Whiteley said those sites were not affected.

Bass Pro’s biggest issue now, Whiteley said, is the lack of available supplies; the company has donated truckloads of bottled water, cots, tents and other supplies to the region through internal efforts as well as through Springfield-based Convoy of Hope.

“Trying to get restocked is the biggest problem right now. Bottled water, cots, tents – we’ve used up all our supply and all of our manufacturers’ supplies, so we have to catch up now, because no one could have anticipated this,” he said. “It’s hurt us somewhat, but the manufacturers are in the process of gearing up and trying to get us restocked again.”