Retailers survive Gustav with no damage

Storm causes brief delays

By Jennifer Netherby and Danny King -- Video Business, 9/3/2008

SEPT. 3 | Retailers in New Orleans and the southeast can breathe a sigh of relief.

Despite concerns that Hurricane Gustav could become a category 4 hurricane battering New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, in the end it spared the city and has so far had little effect on retailers in the region.

Retailers who closed stores in New Orleans and other parts of the south took the biggest hit from the storm.

That’s nothing compared to the impact of Hurricane Katrina three years ago, which hurt retailers across a wide swath of the country and was expected to shave 5% to 10% off expected holiday sales industrywide. Katrina disabled New Orleans and damaged Gulf Coast pipelines, pushing gas prices up, which raised shipping costs during that fourth quarter.

With Gustav dissipating, gas prices actually dropped Tuesday.

WaxWorks president Kirk Kirkpatrick said some of the retailers to which it distributes in the region closed stores and evacuated the area, but for the most part, it was business as usual. UPS, which had heavy delays on shipments in the Southeast during Katrina, has had few delays except to certain zip codes, he said.

“Really, it has been not anywhere near the last one, where UPS was out for weeks,” Kirkpatrick said.

Netflix reported some delays out of its Baton Rouge, La., distribution center, but all other distribution centers were unaffected.

Best Buy said in a statement today that eight of its Louisiana stores were closed due to Hurricane Gustav. The company, which has about 1,000 U.S. stores, said it will match customers' Red Cross donations for hurricane victims up to $1 million.

Blockbuster said yesterday that a few of its stores lost power because of the storm, but still stayed open and didn't sustain any damage.

"We are shipping inventory from distribution centers outside of the Gulf Coast area to get them their DVDs as quickly as possible, and we are proactively communicating with them," Blockbuster spokesman Randy Hargrove said yesterday.

As of Tuesday evening, Wal-Mart had shut down 75 southeastern U.S. stores, down from as many as 125 over the weekend, said company spokeswoman Sharon Weber, who added that none of the stores sustained major damage from the storm. As of April, 290 of Wal-Mart's approximately 4,200 U.S. stores were in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, the states most affected by Gustav.

Other retailers and distributors didn’t immediately return calls.