A drought has affected several small businesses in Acadiana including crawfish farmer Carl Hetzel.
The Acadia Parish native told me he came to the Small Business Association recovery center for help. The center offers a wide range of services for businesses that experienced a drought through September 19th - December 5, 2023. Hetzel told me it could be years before his business recovers.
“Our disaster over here is probably going to take four to five years before the crawfish industry is back to itself again,” Hetzel said.
Hetzel explains even though the drought was out of his control, he still lost a lot of money.
“It’s just mother nature and it critically hurt the crawfish industry," Hetzel said. "I’m expecting a 150 million dollar loss overall and that’s my way of saying it is terrible."
Hetzel told me the services offered at the SBA recovery center are beneficial to his business.
“How it would help the business is it will kill interest going forward on any money that was borrowed to operate the business,” Hetzel said.
The recovery center is located on N. Parkinson Ave. The center is opened Monday - Friday, 9 am - 6pm. For people who cannot come to the recovery center, the SBA offers a virtual assistance office online that is open from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday - Friday at FOCWAssistance@sba.gov
