Greg Gerber posted on November 24, 2008 07:04
LAKE SHASTA, Calif. -- The summer's wildfire smoke only piled on to the discouraging factors that kept half as many tourists from visiting the Shasta RV Park near Lake Shasta this year, owner Joyce Shaidell said Friday.
"The gas prices, that was the first thing that was bad, and then the low water. And then the fire. That finished us," Shaidell said of the blazes that blanketed Lake Shasta in smoke in late June, all of July and into August."August business - we didn't have any," she said.
But there's help for restaurants, tour guides, boat renters and other small businesses like hers. The U.S. Small Business Administration is offering low-interest loans to those that lost sales because of either this year's heavy smoke or sub-freezing temperatures.
Small businesses and most private, nonprofit organizations of any size may apply. The Economic Injury Disaster Loans are available because of disaster declarations covering Shasta, Trinity, Siskiyou, Tehama and 17 other northern counties.
Applications are allowed not only for physical damage from wildfires, for example, but also the economic toll of lost business, administration spokesman Ron Foss said.
At Shasta RV, the resort's 53 RV sites, 20 tent sites and a few cabins usually fill up almost all summer. But Shaidell and her husband saw half as many guests this year, the worst in their 15 years at the site, she said. "They just didn't want to come sit in the smoke," Shaidell said.
SOURCE: Redding Searchlight