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WILKES-BARRE TWP — Chuck Sullick, general manager of Best Buy, couldn’t help but look from behind the caution tape and think about the fate of his store Thursday morning.
“I wasn’t here last night, so I didn’t get to see how bad it looked,” Sullick said. “My main concern was that my employees got home safe.”
The storm that swept through the Arena Hub Plaza late Wednesday left destruction, but it also left businesses in the dark about what happened to their workplaces, and what happens next.
Sullick has been in contact with the Best Buy’s corporate offices.
“They said to just them know if myself or my employees need anything and just to keep them updated.”
“Wilkes-Barre is strong,” Sullick said. “We just need to pull back together as a community.”
The general theme for every manager was to just tell their employees to stay home, because they themselves don’t know their store’s fate.
“I was in shock,” Michael’s store manager Hubert Herrera said. “I never thought this could happen in this area but the most important thing was making sure my employees were safe.”
Michael’s is located right next to Dick’s Sporting Goods that was ransacked by the storm.
“I don’t know if the damage from Dick’s is going to be a problem for us,” Herrera said. “But judging from a distance I hope we can operate soon.”
Officials at the scene said that after 3 p.m. they will begin to allow businesses in to assess the damage of their store. But, they are still dealing with a large propane tank.
Gov. Tom Wolf is scheudled to walk-through and survey the damages with the media at 1:30 p.m.