ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — For more than a week, businesses along Orange Avenue in the area of the Pulse nightclub shooting scene had to shut their doors while investigators processed the scene.
The road reopened Tuesday, giving the businesses a chance to reopen, but for many of the small, family-owned shops, damage from the closure was significant.
Gov. Rick Scott, speaking Wednesday from Ragin Cajun Bike Shop across from Pulse, asked the community to rally around the Orange Avenue businesses and help them recover.
“We had this terror attack where we lost 49 friends,” Scott said. “And if you just travel around Orlando, you’ll know it impacted everybody. “If you listen to reports from around the world, it impacted our world.”
The community will continue to mourn and pray for victims and their families, “but the other thing that we have to do is we have to think about how we get these businesses back to work,” Scott said. “A lot of people think it’s just a business. No, it’s people.”
Omar Mateen walked into Pulse around 2 a.m. June 12 and opened fire, killing 49 people and injuring another 53.
Scott said nothing that anybody can do now will change the facts, and that people need to focus on the outpouring of support and kindness that has washed over the city in the wake of the shooting, he said.
“It was clearly an attack on Orlando, clearly an attack on our state and clearly an attack on our nation,” Scott said. “It was an attack on our gay community, it was an attack on our Hispanic community and it was an attack on America’s way of life. But if you look at what’s happened during the past 10 days, this community has come together.”
Orange County Mayor Teresa Jacobs recalled a conversation she had with Ragin Cajun owner Shirley Bronovitsky in the minutes leading up to the news conference.
Jacobs asked Bronovitsky if she was ready to go back to work, and said she was taken aback by her response.
“She didn’t talk about work. She talked about the people she lost,” Jacobs said.
But there are plenty of business owners and employees who have been asking what they're supposed to do after a week without income or wages.
"We're asked for a federal declaration, an emergency declaration, which, unfortunately, the White House has turned down," Scott said.
Scott has announced he plans to appeal the federal decision not to designate emergency funds for Orlando.
"Yes. I am worried. I don't know what we're going to do about payroll or anything," said Bronovitsky. "What if it doesn't pick up and everything? What am I going to do? All I can do is just hope."
The Pulse massacre, the worst mass shooting in U.S. history, has been deemed an act of terrorism.
It is important that members of the community not let terror affect, let alone rule, their lives, Jacobs said.
“What is the purpose of terror? It’s to disrupt, it’s to scare us, it’s to force us into our homes, into our cocoons,” she said. “We, as a community, have come together to show that this killer did not disrupt our unity, he did not disrupt the loving hearts and souls that we have in this community, and we cannot let him disrupt the way we live our lives.”
Orange Avenue businesses are open for business, as is the city, Jacobs said, adding that she believed Orlando residents would step up to help.
"Once they realize that we have businesses that have been closed down for a week, that have lost friends and neighbors and customers, I have so much confidence in this community," she said.
Jacobs encouraged people to visit the Orange Avenue businesses, not necessarily to buy something, but just to show support for them and the people who were injured and killed in the Pulse attack.
“Bring a white rose, or a rainbow-colored rose, and share their grief, and share your time with these folks,” she said.
Scott and Jacobs agree that without the $5 million in federal funding, there's no other money to hand out.
Scott said the state's money is tied up in tourism campaigns and there's no money for programs aimed at that specific area.
Cox Media Group
