New Mexico Retailer Flooded with Rugs form New Orl
Santa Fe, NM, October 24, 2005--More than a month after Hurricane Katrina flooded much of New Orleans, a Santa Fe business remains flooded with rugs from a New Orleans store, according to the Financial Times.
Sharon Schenck, who owns the Oriental Rug Resource in Santa Fe, had to move more than 1,500 rugs from her New Orleans store after the hurricane.
The hurricane didn’t flood the New Orleans store, but damaged it enough to close down.
The rugs, which she says she handpicked for New Orleans, fill up her Santa Fe store and her garage.
“It’s just unbelievable the amount of rugs in this tiny little space,” she said.
She had just ordered 200 more rugs for her New Orleans store from Afghanistan. Now, those rugs are sitting in customs.
The rugs can’t be stored too long, she says, because of moths. The least expensive rugs normally retail in the hundreds of dollars, while some fetch thousands.
Schenck says she’s brainstorming to figure out ways to sell the New Orleans rugs by discounting prices or selling them to evacuees in Houston.
