ST. MARYS – Jerry Brandon said he could only recall two times when water entered the century-old Riverview Hotel his family has owned for more than 80 years in this quaint coastal city.
The first was from Hurricane Dora in 1964 and the other was a week ago when Hurricane Matthew blasted Florida and Georgia’s coast before beating a track across the Carolinas. About four inches of water spilled into the Riverview’s lounge during the storm.
Matthew killed more than 30 people in the U.S. and several hundred in Haiti, while also displacing hundreds of thousands of Georgia residents and disrupting business for people like Brandon. Still, Brandon said coastal businesses like his dodged a major bullet.
“We’ve still got some clean up to do, but we’re doing fine,” he said. By Wednesday, Riverview and its Captain Seagle’s Waterfront Café and Saloon had reopened, Brandon said. The 18 rooms were fully booked for this weekend.
Across the Georgia coast, business owners spent the week mopping up, clearing debris and assessing damage. State officials said it is too early for damage estimates, but the tally for Georgia will likely be at least in the hundreds of millions of dollars, and officials along the coast say infrastructure repairs could take months in some areas.
Georgia’s barrier islands, from bustling Tybee to the pristine natural preserve of Cumberland, will likely take longer to fully rebound. Even on the islands, however, many hotel and restaurant owners who spoke to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution said they were eager to let people know their businesses are open and ready to serve.
The hurricane canceled weddings and derailed major events such as Tybee Island’s popular Pirate Fest. The port of Savannah closed for several days.
Roger Tutterow, an economist at Kennesaw State University, said natural disasters bring “a mixture of winners and losers,” economically speaking. Construction firms and tree cutters, for instance, see a surge of storm-related business, while others are likely to see disruption of a week or more of sales, particularly in the hospitality industry at a popular travel time along Georgia’s coast.
“There’s a lot of cleaning out to do and in some cases some rebuilding,” he said.
‘Water … in the cup holders’
Justin Giles, an owner of Savannah Auto Inc. on Chatham Parkway west of Savannah’s downtown, heeded the evacuation orders. Before dawn Oct. 8, the day the hurricane hit Savannah, a friend sent him a picture posted on a local TV station’s Facebook page of his flooded car lot.
“We lost five,” Giles said, including four sedans and an SUV. “We had five of them just marinate for about four days.”
Giles said the flood was exacerbated by an undersized and clogged storm water pipe that couldn’t handle runoff from other nearby properties. He said insurance Giles and his brother thought would cover the losses won’t.
By Wednesday, Giles said his store was open, though the flood waters had only receded slightly.
“There’s water still in the cup holders,” he said.
Giles said he fears a total loss of about $15,000.
Islands spared the worst
On St. Simon’s Island, the owners and some workers at Southern Soul Barbeque stayed behind when others left for the mainland. At 7 a.m. on Oct. 8, Harrison Sapp was in the restaurant readying the pits as Matthew cleared. The building was spared, though they had no power.
No problem.
“You don’t need power to start up the smokers,” said Kirsten Hawkins, the barbeque joint’s general manager.
By Tuesday, Hawkins said the Southern Soul crew had been serving first responders and utility crews for free for three days.
“We just cooked everything we had,” she said.
Two of Georgia’s best-known resorts rode out storm relatively well and reopened Wednesday after losing about a week of business.
Scott Steilen, president and CEO of Sea Island Co., which owns the tony Cloister, golf courses and operates the exclusive gated community, said insurance will help cover losses from interrupted business.
Sea Island’s golf courses lost a few hundred trees, a number of private residences took damage and Matthew whipped the community’s beach.
“Our beach took a beating,” he said Wednesday. “We haven’t exactly figured out how much beach we’ve lost at high tide, but that’s the part we’re concerned about.”
He said his team is working on a beach restoration plan while work continues to open golf courses. One or two courses were expected to open Friday.
Prudent evacuation
Steilen praised orders to evacuate given predictions of 11-foot storm surge that would have flooded all of Sea Island. Sea Island employees evacuated to Brunswick and have spent much of time since working to ready the resort for what’s expected to be a busy weekend and keeping owners informed on the condition of their properties.
“We’ve also had groups call us to say we don’t want to cancel (our planned events), we want to come and help any way that we can,” he said.
October is a busy time along Georgia’s coast, with the Georgia-Florida weekend capping the month. Steilen said Sea Island is ready for fans.
“It’s a big weekend for our community as a whole,” he said. “It’s a time for our community to shine and come together and we think it will be even more impactful this year with what we just went through.”
The King & Prince hotel and resort on St. Simons had six weddings planned last weekend. Bud St. Pierre, director of sales and marking for the resort, said he hopes to reschedule five. The property, which reopened Wednesday, sustained no major damage, though like Sea Island it lost scores of trees on their links.
Full weekend expected
The hotel was fully booked for the weekend Matthew hit. St. Pierre said the lost revenue will probably total a few hundred thousand dollars.
“One-quarter of the month was impacted, but it could have been a lot worse,” he said. This weekend, a large wedding will go on as scheduled and the resort should again be full.
In downtown Savannah, River Street and City Market were ghost towns last weekend when the popular tourist spots normally would be filled with people.
Quito Anderson, CEO of developer Ben Carter Enterprises, which is transforming more than 35 historic buildings on Broughton Street into a hive of boutiques and eateries, said the structures survived unscathed and merchants started reopening early in the week.
“With 250-year-old buildings and horizontal rain you’re going to get some water intrusion,” Anderson said, describing it as a minor issue. “A lot of people were not as fortunate as us.”
