Dolly's Windfall: Valley businesses cash in on hurricane cleanup

Amid disaster there is opportunity.

Therefore, although homeowners across the Rio Grande Valley braced for Hurricane Dolly, a variety of businesses, such as hotels and hardware stores, realized a windfall long after the storm passed.

"Oh my goodness," said Connie Hensley, sales manager at the Staybridge Suites in Brownsville. "We could have used two or three more hotels."

Hotels from Brownsville to Mission are booked solid with insurance adjusters, utilities crews and disaster relief workers.

Hensley said her hotel, which books rooms for $150 per night, is still full, and she doesn't expect that to change until the middle of next week.

"Obviously," Hensley said, "this is not normal."

Assessing the destruction caused by Dolly is barely underway, but the insured liability throughout the region is expected to reach $1 billion.

And with the housing industry in crisis and housing starts in decline, Dolly has been a shot in the arm for some businesses.

"There has been a dramatic increase in customer traffic," said John Moreno, operations manager for Home Depot in Brownsville. "(Dolly) certainly generates a lot of business."

In a normal week, the Home Depot has between 1,500 and 1,600 customers and generates around $1.2 million in sales each week.

Since Dolly hit, the home improvement store saw customer traffic surge to nearly 3,000 per day, and sales top $2 million.

"Wow," Moreno said, "we sold everything from plywood, tarps to generators and now chainsaws."

Thousands of area residents lost power, making the generator a popular item. The cheapest generator at Home Depot goes for $599 and the most expensive costs $799.

The store sold 65 generators in one day, but he expects sales to gradually taper off in the next few weeks.

For Oscar Gonzalez, however, owner of Grass Unlimited, a lawn and debris removal service, business is surging.

"I think I can speak for everyone in this business," he said, "the cleanup is keeping us busy."

Gonzalez's charges vary depending on the job. He has his list of regular clients, but phone calls for new accounts, mostly to clean up debris, have shot through the roof.

He owns five chainsaws and is considering buying another.

"I've been working 12-hour days," he said. "Of course, once this is over then the grass will start getting out of control."

Dozens of signs need repair, too.

Although many corporate logos have contracts outside the Valley, Sabas Lopez Jr. and his business, Electrical Sign Co., are going after the rest.

"Oh yeah," Lopez said, "we've been getting a lot of work."

Lopez braced for his phone to ring off the hook after the storm. When at first it didn't, he started getting nervous.

"It was a little delayed," Lopez said. "But once it started ringing, it hasn't stopped since."

He got calls from Buffalo Wild Wings, A&B Lopez and Sunrise Mall. Some of the smaller repairs cost between $120 and $175, and the more expensive fixes can cost $10,000.

With all the damage, Lopez said his business has increased at least 30 percent in Dolly's wake.

"Not to say that's a good thing, but it's not a bad thing either," he said.

For John Deere, it hasn't been so much about increased sales, but rather that business has shifted purchases from one end of the store to the other.

In a typical year, the store sells approximately 100 chainsaws, according to Jimmy Sanchez, store manager of John Deere in Brownsville.The store sold 50 last week alone.

Chainsaws there range in price from $150 to $1,000.

However, as Sanchez prepares to order another shipment of chainsaws, sales of farming equipment has fallen off the map.

Crops were hit hard by flooding, and many of Sanchez's regular customers have all but disappeared.

Sanchez takes a philosophical approach to the aftermath of Dolly and his store's shifting sales.

"Whatever God sends, that's what we got to deal with," Sanchez said.