Hurricane Irma began to wane Monday, moving north as a tropical storm after tearing through the Caribbean and South Florida, leaving homes and businesses in disarray.þþTyson Foods closed four chicken and beef processing plants in Florida and Georgia on Monday in anticipation of the winds and rain, said Derek Burleson, a spokesman for the company. Target shut down 127 stores and four distribution facilities across Florida, Georgia, Alabama and South Carolina and planned to reopen them on a case-by-case basis.þþIndustries including air travel, freight and amusement parks were engaged in herculean efforts to brace for the storm. But many companies could not avoid Irma’s destruction as it battered nearly every part of the region’s tightly intertwined economy.þþFlorida’s amusement parks and attractions emerged relatively unscathed from the storm — physically, at least.þþThe real pain will come in the next few months, as Irma causes a psychological ripple effect through the state that may discourage families from planning trips, said Dennis Speigel, president of International Theme Park Services, a consulting firm in Cincinnati.þþ“Orlando lives, breathes, thrives on tourists, and the theme parks are the drivers of that,” he said. “This is a really hard loss — hundreds of millions of dollars in aggregate for the industry down there.”þþLast year, 68 million tourists visited Orlando, and more than 70 million were expected this year, Mr. Speigel said. But much of the supporting infrastructure of hotels and restaurants has lost power, access to transit and regular deliveries of supplies.þþ“These trips are planned six to eight months in advance, with the average family of four spending somewhere in the $7,000 to $8,000 range,” he said. “If you’ve lost a day, you’ve lost that day and you can’t get it back.”þþRoughly 100 sites shut down across the state in advance of the storm, including the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex and the Vizcaya Museum and Gardens, according to the Florida Attractions Association.þþUniversal Orlando, which includes the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, closed Saturday evening but kept its hotels operational and at capacity.þþSeaWorld Orlando and Busch Gardens Tampa Bay shut even earlier on Saturday, and offered to reschedule or refund vacation packages and individual tickets without cancellation or change fees. Both of those parks were planning to stay closed Tuesday.þþDisney Springs and Walt Disney World Resort, which includes the Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom parks, projected a Tuesday reopening.þþThe Magic Kingdom has shut down only four other times in its nearly 46-year history — each time for an incoming hurricane. Tickets start at $99 for a single day.þþDisney’s dozens of resort hotels in the state remained open during the storm. The company canceled several events and offered guests several refund or ticket exchange options.
Source: NY Times
