[StBernard] St. Bernard firms celebrate progress

[Westley Annis]

St. Bernard firms celebrate progress
More than 100 go to chamber meeting 
Saturday, December 02, 2006
By Karen Turni Bazile
For some St. Bernard Parish business owners, time heals. 

In the 15 months since Hurricane Katrina, certain St. Bernard Parish
business owners said they are doing as well or better than they did before
the storm decimated the area. 

Claudette Reuther, a real estate agent with Prudential Gardner and chairman
of the St. Bernard Chamber of Commerce, said some local businesses have
found success by opening multiple locations that they wouldn't have if not
for the hurricane. 

 
More than 100 local business people met Thursday night in the Chalmette
headquarters of Boasso America for the chamber's annual meeting, the first
held in St. Bernard since the storm. Reuther said last year's annual meeting
was held at the Governor's Mansion in Baton Rouge. 

Not that the business climate is anywhere back to normal. Possibly 1,000 of
the parish's 1,500 storefront and retail businesses that were open
pre-Katrina have not returned, said Charlie Ponstein, a parish business
consultant. 

But there are success stories. 

Sam Catalanotto, who has owned Ditto's Printing for 16 years, said he is in
a smaller Chalmette location now, but has just as much business, in part
because of less competition. 

And Charlene Walsh, who owned Olive Branch Emporium for about five years,
always wanted to open a coffee shop and cafe inside her gift shop before
Katrina. She said rebuilding after the storm was the perfect opportunity. 

Walsh, who catered the chamber event, her first large public catering job,
agreed that she is doing better since the storm. "When we decided to come
home, we decided if we were going to (open a café) we had to do it now and
get in on the ground floor," she said. 

During its gathering, U.S. Senator David Vitter, R-Metairie, updated chamber
members on efforts by the local congressional delegation to push for
improved flood protection, $8.3 billion worth, and $1 million for
infrastructure for the St. Bernard Port, Harbor and Terminal District. He
toured the port with officials earlier in the day. 

"In my mind, all of the discussions begin and end with hurricane and flood
protection," Vitter said, "That's why I have been riding herd" on the
federal government to close the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet. 

Many officials in St. Bernard Parish and metro New Orleans blame the MRGO, a
shipping channel dug that opened in the mid-1960s to provide a shortcut from
the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico, for much of the flooding that
devastated St. Bernard Parish and parts of New Orleans. 

The St. Bernard chamber, created in 2002, has 105 active members, about the
same number as before Katrina, Reuther said. 

. . . . . . . 

Karen Turni Bazile can be reached at kturni at timespicayune.com or (504)
826-3321.