WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — Small business owners are trying to come up with other plans after the fertilizer plant fire shut them out from their shops since Monday.
Suzy Bennett is one of those business owners. She owns Hustle and Heart NC, less than a half-mile from the Weaver Fertilizer plant fire.
She said she heard about the news Monday night.
"I think at first I was just not too sure of how big it was I was like. 'OK it’s a fire, they’ll get it under control,' then I see they’re evacuating," she said.
Tuesday morning she and her co-owner went to the shop.
"We saw we weren’t going to be able to enter our building and we have two cats and we were like, 'Oh no our kittens they’re all by themselves,'" she said.
Bennett said after listening to the news conference, they decided to go back to get the cats and anything they could use to work from home.
"You hear what the material is and the risk that it's going to explode and you see some stories that have happened before.. I was terrified," she said, "At any point all those windows and the building, it can come down and that’s how we feed and support our family."
Bennett said she also feels for the families that have had to evacuate and completely adjust their lives because of the fire.
Now, Bennett is trying to think of another plan, as she works to put together the payroll for her employee all while being closed for days.
"It has the potential to cripple our small business. It's been one thing after another for two or three years now and every week you enter the building and say this is going to be a good week," she said.
Bennett described the scene when they went back to the shop.
"It was a very eerie situation. We went down a road where somebody had already ripped down police lines. There were two of them that had already been taken down. There was nothing out. There were cars in parking lots but you’re not sure if those cars have people belonging to them or if they’ve just left them. It was very smoky. It was very thick the first time it was so bad," she said.
She said she's thankful for the first responders working to keep everyone safe, her heart goes out to those who are out of their homes, and now she's working to figure out what's next for her business.
"The unknown is very scary as a small business owner," she said, "At some point, we're going to come up with a plan if they don’t have an update on when we can reenter."