OWASSO, Ok — Twenty-two businesses at the Cornerstone Shopping Center on East 86th Street North in Owasso can now open after the Owasso Fire Department lifted a week-long evacuation order June 25.
The order was lifted after a venting system was installed to eliminate dangerous methane gas buildup beneath the buildings. The fire department says continued monitoring shows no detectable hazardous gas, but the property owner must maintain the new venting system to keep businesses safe.
For Rose Sloma, owner of Screaming Earth Records, the seven days of uncertainty hit hard.
"Financially wise it's been really, really hard. We do the majority of our business on the weekend and so the fact that they evacuated us on Thursday that was when we were kind of ramping up, doing a lot of our sales, we had listening events we had to cancel and so it's very devastating to at least our business," Sloma said.
But the Owasso business community stepped up. When Sloma faced losing a crucial weekend of sales, another local business owner offered her empty retail space.
Sloma credits Wendy Gonzalez of the Copper Kiln for making the temporary pop-up location possible.
"The only reason we are in this pop up is a fellow business owner in Owasso reached out to us right after we realized we weren't going to be able to open on the weekend, she reached out and was like, hey I've got this spot for you and as you can tell it's an amazing space and we are truly, truly blessed," Sloma said.
Sloma said Gonzalez and her family helped set up the temporary location.
"Wendy Gonzalez. She's amazing and her whole family is amazing and her kids have been helping us and her sister's been helping us. It's been absolutely amazing for them to come in and rally with us," Sloma said.
With the all-clear from fire officials, Sloma is ready to return to her permanent home.
"We would love to be back in our home and get back to serving our community," Sloma said.
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
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