New Orleans Shops Struggle to Survive

For all the cheerful displays of Louisiana’s best-known hot sauce and all the pepper-shaped and pepper-flavored products on the shelves, the Tabasco Country Store is in deep trouble.

The shop, at the airport, was closed for months after Hurricane Katrina, and sales remain down 45 percent. The owner, Laura Y. Drumm, has mortgaged her house to the hilt; she has borrowed from her in-laws; her insurance will not pay for her losses, and neither will the government. Her one employee did not return after the storm, and her husband, Hughes, is running the store’s cash register seven days a week.
from The New York Times