GULFPORT, Fla. (WFLA) — As the holiday shopping weekend approaches, many small businesses depend on the revenue to survive.

Some small businesses along the Pinellas Beach Communities will not reopen in time to take advantage of the opportunity.

The small town of Gulfport suffered significant damage through back-to-back hurricanes.
Aaron Day is a chiropractor in the Gulfport area and has lost a number of clients because of the storms.

“A lot of people decided to move because they’ve never dealt with a hurricane, you know,” Day said. “They’ve never dealt with this.”

The damage to the outside of his business is not as obvious as others, but his lost of revenue is just as real.

“It is starting to trickle back, but the keyword is trickle,” Day said.

Aaron Beeman owned a real estate business in Gulfport, and he said things are going well for him.

“I mean it slowed things down a little, but the town has bounced back better than ever,” Beeman said.

He said he’s getting business from homeowners looking to leave and others who are taking advantage of opportunities with lower prices.

“Because you’ve got properties that are going for lot value now that people can buy and build up on,” Beeman said.

Audrey Dingeman said she has hurricane survivor’s guilt because her vegan restaurant wasn’t as damaged as some of the businesses owned by her friends, but they still had losses.

“We were closed here for almost two weeks, so we lost thousands of dollars of product,” Dingeman said.

She and other business owners said they need customers to come back and need the community’s support now more than ever.

“You can feel it on the weekends a little bit,” Dingeman said. “It’s been a little more lively the last couple of weekends, but revenue is still down everywhere, and it’s been slow.”