Small businesses continue to recover from floods

HARLINGEN, Texas (ValleyCentral) — The Harlingen Economic Development Corporation (HEDC) and the City of Harlingen have come up with a grant program to help out businesses affected by last week's flood.

Many are still cleaning and analyzing their losses.

“Its been very difficult the cleaning up," said Terri Lee, who owns Valley Beauty Supply, LLC. "It has taken us a long time to get our show room the way it is and it just took merely hours for it to be destroyed. Its just heartbreaking."

According to the HEDC, at least 80 businesses were impacted by the floods with many still not accounted for.

Some of the business owners say they had to change all their carpets, fix broken windows and glass.

These business owners all say they lost thousands of dollars due to damages.

Frank Moreno, owner of CF Mattress World, says that one week after the historic storm, he was finally able to throw away some of the damaged mattresses.

“We managed to lose about 60% of our mattress stock here. As the water was rising, it wet the mattresses, boxes, a lot of things," Moreno said.

Moreno showed ValleyCentral how much there is to clean and a complete set of electric beds still in their boxes that are completely ruined because of the water.

His walls also sustained major damage.

“It was coming from the floor up and coming from the garage door and back door and it came coming and coming and we couldn’t stop it," Moreno said.

Valley Beauty Supply was another business impacted.

Lee and her brother James Lopez Jr., who co-own the business, says all products on the bottom shelves were floating when she arrived the morning after the flood.

“We had ruin desks, doors, and tens of thousands of dollars of merchandise damaged," Lee said.

Complete palettes of new products were also ruined. She is drying up some towels and other products she can hopefully sale at a discount.

Both siblings say they are immense need but have not heard from the city about any help.

“Everything that got damaged, ruined needs to be replaced and it takes money to do that," Lopez said.

Lee says she hopes the city comes up with a solution to help them find some aid.

“We need to know that they care about us," Lee said. "We care about our community, and now they have to show us that they care about us too.”

The HEDC and the City of Harlingen joined forces on Thursday evening by providing small businesses with a $3,000 grant to help with building repairs, mold prevention and inventory replacement.

Chief Executive Officer Orlando Campos says this is a good start.

“I think that if we realize that the need is far greater, then we will brainstorm and see what else we can do," Campos said. "So we're starting with $3,000 hopefully that will help offset any additional costs that weren't reimbursed by insurance companies.”

Moreno and others are maintaining a positive attitude after the storm.

“Prayers is the number one thing," Moreno said. "As far as money, we have loss some money, but we will recoup.”

Campos says the application will be ready by next week so business owners can start applying.