Businesses slowly returning to normalcy

A run on metro Atlanta gasoline stations Tuesday night brought long lines and caused some stations to run out of fuel. But store operators said they were re-supplying Thursday and taking extra deliveries to keep up with the expected surge of customers running on empty.

“We’ll be playing catch-up for a couple of days,” said Mike Thornbrugh, spokesman for QuikTrip Corp. He said two of the Tulsa, Okla., company’s 129 convenience stores in metro Atlanta ran out of gas during the winter storm. But they got more gasoline Thursday morning. Thornbrugh said the company is doubling the pace of fuel deliveries to its stores to keep up with higher sales to drivers who ran low on gasoline due to the massive traffic jams.

Jim Tudor, president of the Georgia Association of Convenience Stores, said there were “spot outages that will be resolved in the next day or so.” Pumps didn’t run out because of a shortage of gasoline in metro Atlanta, he added, but simply because delivery trucks couldn’t reach stores because of the icy roads.

Air travel

The wait to get through security at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport returned to normal Thursday after travelers spent hours in line the day before because of a lack of Transportation Security Administration screeners and other staffers. The wait Thursday was about five to 10 minutes, TSA spokesman Mark Howell said.

Only six of the 22 main screening lanes were open Wednesday, but 16 were open by midday Thursday. Howell said the airport authority made arrangements to send Atlanta Police officers to give ice-bound TSA workers a lift.

Delta Air Lines said the weather brought it similar staffing problems. Spokesman Morgan Durrant said some employees could not get to the airport. “This led to additional, unplanned cancellations Wednesday evening and Thursday morning,” and more than 700 flights remained cancelled as of Thursday afternoon.

Delta said it flew about a dozen pilots and flight attendants to Louisville to rest up because of a lack of ground transportation to Atlanta hotels. The crew returned to Atlanta after they had rested. Some customer-service employees, meanwhile, slept for a second night Wednesday in planes parked at gates.

Southwest Airlines said it and its AirTran operations, which combined canceled about 175 of 3,600 daily flights, continued to work to get flight schedules back to normal.

Conventions

Many metro Atlanta conventions got a break from the gridlock since their events were already under way when Tuesday’s storm hit. The biggest show in town was the International Production & Process Expo at the Georgia World Congress Center, which kicked off Tuesday as the ice storm began to wreak havoc. More than more than 24,000 attendees were registered and visitors represented more than 100 countries. The expo combines previous separate poultry, feed and meat expos.

“A good majority of our attendees made it in to Atlanta on Monday, as our educational programs started that day,” said Gwen Venable, spokeswoman for the U.S. Poultry & Egg Association. Venable said some speakers were not able to make it, but they either made presentations remotely or substitutes were found. About 300 attendees couldn’t get to Atlanta.

William Pate, president and chief executive officer of the Atlanta Convention & visitors Bureau, said the city made sure bus lanes were clear so shuttles could move to and from the GWCC.

Banking

Major banking chains were expected to return to normal operations Friday. Wells Fargo said only about 25 of its 175 metro Atlanta banks were not open Thursday, and the closed locations were mainly to the west and north. PNC said all of its metro branches were closed Thursday, but will reopen at 9 a.m. Friday. SunTrust Banks, which had a delayed opening for some branches Thursday, said its branch network will return to normal business hours Friday.

Retail and restaurants

The decision by many businesses to close Thursday hurt restaurants that depend on office workers’ orders. Moe Dehdashti and a cook were the only ones in Mama Mia’s Pizzeria & Italian Grill at 1 p.m. Thursday across the street from Atlanta’s City Hall and adjacent to several government buildings including the Fulton County Courthouse. “The only day we shut down was Wednesday,” said Dehdashti, who has owned the place eight years. “Of course, today was very slow.”

For other businesses, however, Thursday was the start to a return to normalcy. At Mister HotShine Car Wash on Ponce De Leon in Atlanta, as the sun began to break the ice, several vehicles arrived to get the snow, salt and grime removed. “Today, we are trying to provide work for our employees and a service for the community,” General Manager Jim James said.

Home Depot, which provided gas cans and other supplies to the city of Atlanta to assist stranded motorists, said its stores were open Wednesday and Thursday and will be open Friday. Other major retailers and malls and shopping centers were also expected to return to normal business hours Friday.

Mail and packages

UPS and the the U.S. Postal Service were whacked hard by Tuesday’s storm, but said they resumed deliveries Thursday and hoped to get back to normal within a few days.

“We are delivering everywhere, but there are limitations,’” said UPS spokeswoman Susan Rosenberg. She said drivers on Thursday were dropping off what was already on their trucks. But there were still problems getting packages and freight where they needed to go due to missing workers and customers who hadn’t re-opened their businesses. Rosenberg said the company expects to catch up by early next week.

Meanwhile, the storm virtually shut down the Atlanta area’s mail carriers and roughly 100 post offices, said Michael Miles, communication manager for the U.S. Postal Service’s Atlanta district.

“Very few deliveries were made yesterday,” he said Thursday. But almost all the post offices and mail carriers were back on the job Thursday. “We should have worked through the backlogs by” the weekend, he said.