How to find fuel during the storm recovery – BRAC contacted the Gas Buddy app people on Tuesday afternoon. They confirmed that their fuel-price-search app has activated a disaster-area service that allows users in Louisiana and Mississippi to find (and update about) gas stations with fuel, diesel and power, or to report outages. The app is free, and powered by crowdsourcing. We encourage residents to take time to update outage data as stores run out or reopen, so that everyone in the community has visibility of available fuel locations. Download the Gas Buddy app from your App Store, or learn more at https://www.gasbuddy.com/. To view locations with fuel on a map, you can visit their Tracker Map, which allows a user to zoom in an out of the Baton Rouge area. In addition, the company has posted a blog this morning to share the fuel station outage percentages by Louisiana city: 52.7 percent of gas stations in the Baton Rouge Area have fuel outages, while 26 percent are out of diesel. The more we use it, the more accurate it becomes.
Which grocery stores are open, updated for all nine parishes: We worked today to update the list of grocery stores that are open, in East Baton Rouge as well as all parishes across the region. They are separated in two spreadsheet tabs posted online here, one for EBR and another for the surrounding eight parishes. If any grocery stores are missing or if information needs to be updated, email details to info@brac.org.
Regional Power restoration update: Almost 13,000 customers got power back over the last day. Pointe Coupee and West Baton Rouge appear to be back to normal. Livingston and Ascension both have about 80% of residents and businesses without power. The majority of the customers that had power returned over-the-day were in East Baton Rouge, but the parish still accounts for about half of all outages in the region. For those watching New Orleans status, Entergy announced a very positive sign with “first light” this morning for utility restoration. Here’s the day over day progress by parish in our region:
| Parish | Tracked | Outages (8/30) | %age Out | Outages (8/31) | %age Out | Outages (9/1) | %age Out |
| Ascension | 58,304 | 52,657 | 90.3% | 47,692 | 81.8% | 46,377 | 79.5% |
| EBR | 216,086 | 160,410 | 74.2% | 126,170 | 58.4% | 117,311 | 54.3% |
| EF | 10,357 | 5,155 | 49.8% | 5,433 | 52.5% | 4,983 | 48.1% |
| Iberville | 9,087 | 5,050 | 55.6% | 4,696 | 51.7% | 3,820 | 42.0% |
| Livingston | 68,420 | 22,810 | 33.3% | 55,898 | 81.7% | 55,775 | 81.5% |
| PC | 5,091 | 1,798 | 35.3% | 835 | 16.4% | 41 | 0.8% |
| St. Helena | 6,961 | 4,100 | 58.9% | 4,211 | 60.5% | 4,211 | 60.5% |
| WBR | 12,840 | 3,218 | 25.1% | 573 | 4.5% | 60 | 0.5% |
| WF | 6,354 | 2,153 | 33.9% | 3,856 | 60.7% | 3,885 | 61.1% |
| TOTAL | 393,500 | 257,351 | 65.4% | 249,364 | 63.4% | 236,463 | 60.1% |
Initial results of BRAC’s Business Impact Survey: We released preliminary responses to our business survey. First, the survey remains open so, if you haven’t done so yet, please add your information on your business status. Deadline is tomorrow by noon. Key takeaways from preliminary analysis:
- 64% of survey respondents indicated that Hurricane Ida will impact their business operations;
- Of those who indicated Hurricane Ida will impact their business operations, 15% expected their business to resume operations within 1-2 days; 72% expected their business to resume operations within 5 days;
- A significant portion (72%) of respondents that faced disruptions indicated that a lack of power or internet is the primary reason behind their business closure;
- 77% of the Capital Region’s smallest businesses (those with less than 10 employees) will face at least temporary business closures. More than half (52%) of these businesses may not resume normal operations for up to five days;
- Less than 9% of survey respondents indicated that the storm would have long-term consequences, forcing closure of more than 12 days.
Office space avail? We are working on a project to identify available offices for short term use for businesses and staff that are temporarily dislocated and need an office with power and wifi. If you would like to add an office space to our list, please email maggi@brac.org.
We have started triage outreach calls to area businesses, in case you get a call and/or voice mail from someone on our team. Let us know if there are specific issues we should know about or we need to help you or others with. Below are additional resources and information.
Regional Info and Resources:
- Hotels and Housing Resources – Visit Baton Rouge reports hotel and motel capacity in Baton Rouge appears to be completely full. For searching all Lafayette area hotels, click We are looking for other housing resources to share.
- Schools – Most area public school districts, charter schools, and private schools remain closed until Tuesday, September 7.
- Airport – BTR is fully operational for commercial and private flights. Rental car operators have reopened and expecting significant demand.
- Port – the Port of Greater Baton Rouge is awaiting clearance for the river to be opened to traffic, but is fully operational otherwise.
- Railroads – Union Pacific is fully operational, CXS is closed until possibly Monday. CN similarly delayed in reopening fully. KCS update pending.
- Open Restaurants – Visit Baton Rouge is maintaining a list of open restaurants in EBR. View it here.
- Open Grocers – A list of open grocery stores is available herefor EBR and the regional parishes.
BRAF Employees 1st program: allows employers with at least 100 employees to make tax-deductible donations to an Employee Relief Fund, able to disburse tax-free grants to cover employees’ short-term financial emergencies due to personal hardships or disasters. Visit https://employees1st.org/ or click here for more information.
FEMA Rumor Control: to combat misinformation being shared related to FEMA benefits, the agency launched a page with common scams and accurate information. Visit it here. FEMA may be contacted at 1-800-621-3342.
SBA Disaster Loans: low-interest federal disaster loans are now available to Louisiana businesses in Ascension, Assumption, East Baton Rouge, East Feliciana, Iberia, Iberville, Jefferson, Lafourche, Livingston, Orleans, Plaquemines, Pointe Coupee, St. Bernard, St. Charles, St. Helena, St. James, St. John the Baptist, St. Martin, St. Mary, St. Tammany, Tangipahoa, Terrebonne, Washington, West Baton Rouge, and West Feliciana parishes as a result of Hurricane Ida. Visit the SBA’s disaster loan assistance site, or reach out via its virtual business recover center (information below) for assistance.
- Virtual Business Recovery Center and
Virtual Disaster Loan Outreach Center
Monday – Sunday (7 days/week)
8 a.m. – 8 p.m. Eastern Time
FOCWAssistance@sba.gov
(800) 659-2955 - Businesses of all sizes and private nonprofit organizations may borrow up to $2 million to repair or replace damaged or destroyed real estate, machinery and equipment, inventory and other business assets. SBA can also lend additional funds to businesses and homeowners to help with the cost of improvements to protect, prevent or minimize the same type of disaster damage from occurring in the future.
- SBA offers small businesses, small ag cooperatives, small businesses engaged in aquaculture and most private nonprofits of any size Economic Injury Disaster Loansto help meet working capital needs caused by the disaster. Economic injury assistance is available to businesses regardless of any property damage.
- Download press release
U.S. Chamber National Disaster Help Desk: Call 1-888-MY-BIZ-HELP for the following assistance:
- You want information about what to do and/or recovery best practices.
- You are in the impact area and want help navigating FEMA, SBA, and other assistance programs.
- You are in the impact area and are not sure who to call for a particular need or assistance.
- You want to support the recovery process and connect with chambers or businesses in the impacted area.