Small businesses in Moore County missed out on several days of the holiday shopping season, following power outages last week caused by the substation attacks.
It’s estimated local businesses lost out on more than $3 million during the outage. The county’s tourism officials are now trying to address the loss in revenue.
Phil Werz is the President of the Convention and Visitors Bureau for the Pinehurst, Southern Pines, Aberdeen Area. He says while local business did take a hit, holiday ceremonies and peak weekend business hours were not affected.
“I guess if there was any fortunate thing with this was that the outage happened on Saturday evening around 8 p.m.,” Werz said. “So, any tree lightings were done either Friday evening, Saturday parades, things like that, or typically during the day.”
Now that power is restored, Werz and local tourism officials are encouraging shoppers and tourists to return to Moore County.
“Some of those mom-and-pop businesses, they depend on December and the holiday season to make their year,” Werz said. “And so hopefully over the course of the next couple of weeks… People will come down and spend some time in Moore County and spend some money as well."
In response to the outage, the Convention and Visitors Bureau launched a website to encourage tourism in the area with links to local businesses. Visit HomeOfGolf.com/MooreMiracles for more information.
The outage, which began the night of Saturday, Dec. 3, left nearly all of Moore County without electricity. Thousands of people didn’t have power for several days.
The county sheriff’s investigation into the attacks — assisted by state officials and the FBI — is ongoing. The FBI is seeking cell phone records that could show who was near the substations that night.
