By james art LAREDO, Texas (KGNS) – Days after the city of Laredo lifted a boil water advisory, business owners are still assessing the financial damage caused by the advisories. The Laredo Chamber of Commerce continues to gather data from local businesses about the economic impact, with the hope that the information will help create a recovery fund.
Monica Martinez, executive director of the Laredo Chamber of Commerce, said losses so far are estimated at about $1 million, but more responses to the ongoing survey could push that number higher.
“Preliminarily the losses are about a million dollars; it could be more,” Martinez said. “The more people who respond to the survey, the easier it will be for us to estimate the losses, so again participation in the survey is important.”
The survey, which contains about 20 questions, asks business owners to report their expected income and details of their losses. The data will be used to help create the Business Assistance Fund, a relief initiative the city of Laredo plans to launch.
For business owners like Jacqueline Bracero, the effects of the boil water notice are still being felt. Bracero, who owns a plant shop, noticed her plants were already struggling long before the council, despite using filtered water.
“That filtration system didn’t protect us from E. coli and it shut down,” Bracero said. “When that stopped, we not only struggled for water for ourselves, but for over 500 plants that needed to be watered. But not only that, the process of watering the plants after they’ve already been contaminated – we have to wash them off.”
Bracero was forced to close her shop for several days to flush the root systems of each individual plant, losing some in the process. She still buys six jugs of water every day to keep her plants alive, as she remains wary of using tap water because of the lingering smell of chlorine.
“We avoid it because the chlorine smell is still so strong,” Bracero said. “Even through the filtration system that’s nearby, we can still smell the chlorine, and we know that’s already a red flag for the plants.”
Bracero has not yet calculated how much money it lost due to the outage. Meanwhile, the Laredo Chamber of Commerce stresses that the damage is not just financial.
“Now people have a lack of faith in the community,” said Andrew Caranco of the Laredo Chamber of Commerce. “I think the city has done a very good job in trying to reduce this problem. But again we get to the real point, which is that… there’s monetary value and there’s business value, the trust that the business has. It’s certainly been shaken up, but nevertheless the city has done a very good job in trying to help businesses.”
The chamber has collected about 50 survey responses so far and will close the survey tomorrow at 10 p.m. Business owners are encouraged to participate to help the city better understand the extent of the damage and help needed.
To access the survey, click here.
To access the Disaster Economic Damage Estimates Worksheet for Businesses, click here.
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