Business washed out by floods

The flood waters that washed away a section of Highway 20 Wednesday, February 7, left many Sisters businesses high and dry as the usual stream of cars and trucks through town was reduced to a trickle of local traffic.

The drought lasted just under a week; Highway 20 reopened at 10 a.m. on Tuesday February 13, allowing through traffic from the Eugene area to Central Oregon.
But businesses along Cascade Street that depend on the trade of commuters were hard hit during the long week of Sisters' isolation.

"It's the pits," said Tom McMeekin, owner of Sisters Pumphouse.

His business was off at least 30 percent, he said, despite servicing the trucks that hauled rock and fill material to the hole in the Santiam Highway.

McMeekin found the sight of Sisters' empty streets eerie and he offered a perspective on the town's transportation options:

"Maybe this'll show Sisters what you'd have if you had a bypass," he said.

Brad Rossa, proprietor of the Sisters Shell station and Sisters General Store, told The Nugget that his business was cut almost exactly in half because of the highway closure.

He said that few people realize how much business is generated in Sisters by salespeople and other business people who commute along Highway 20 from the Willamette Valley to Central Oregon.

But Rossa kept the losses in perspective, noting that February is always a slow month in Sisters.

He said it was certainly better to have such a mishap occur in February rather than in the peak travel months of summer.

Gretchen Stroup, manager of The Gallery Restaurant, concurred with that view.

Stroup said the restaurant had been having very busy weekends due to school sports activities and that the weekend after the highway closed was definitely slow.

"But it's one weekend out of how many?" she reflected

"I'm just glad it happened in the winter instead of the summer."

The highway closure seemed to be the crowning blow in a run of bad luck that has plagued Hoodoo Ski Area's winter season.

The closure forced the area to cancel it's annual Winter Carnival and, according to manager Mike Obymako, cost the operation somewhere in the neighborhood of $90,000.

This followed a late opening and a blast of frigid weather that discouraged skiers from hitting the slopes once the snows finally came.

"You need to get a little momentum going with the season," Obymako said, "and I guess what concerns us is that we've never been able to generate that momentum.

"The $90,000 is probably relatively small compared to what the early season has done to the skiers' enthusiasm," he said.

But there's still plenty of snow on the mountain left over from the big dump that preceded the meltdown, and the area made ready to open as soon as the highway did.

But somehow, the joys of winter seem to have worn thin.

As Obymako put it, "I have a feeling that people are going to be looking for the winter of '96 to be over."