‘King and Queen of Disaster’ look back at Harvey
Hurricane Harvey did its worst, but couple behind Three Brothers Bakery has weathered many floods — and keep rebuilding
After a year, they can joke about it now. Bobby and Janice Jucker proudly wear the mantle of expert survivalists.
“We’ve become really good at disasters,” Bobby said.
Janice poses it in more regal terms: “We are the King and Queen of Disaster.”
At the first anniversary of Hurricane Harvey in Houston, the Juckers can muster a joke at their own expense. Their business, Three Brothers Bakery, on South Braeswood, which has been part of the neighborhood since 1960, has been flooded repeatedly: by Tropical Storm Allison in 2001 with 3 feet of water; the Memorial Day flood in 2015 with another 3 feet of water; and Tax Day flood in 2016 with minimal water that still got into the store. And then there was Hurricane Ike in 2008 when wind damage destroyed the roof, allowing in rain that rendered the building and production area inoperable. They were closed for nine agonizing months.
A year ago, Harvey did them in again.
The Juckers remember the scenario well. They were looking forward to a rare vacation last summer where they could enjoy the
mountains, trees and natural hot springs of southwest Colorado. Before they left for Pagosa Springs, Colo., a tropical depression moving into the Yucatan Peninsula and inching its way toward the western Gulf of Mexico was initially no cause for alarm. But within days, their vacation mindset was replaced by a haunting, familiar scenario that residents and business owners of Braeswood and Meyerland know too well. Flooding.
“We couldn’t get back,” Bobby said. “We just watched CNN and the Weather Channel all day long.”
And not for a moment did the thought leave them: Here we go again.
Harvey slammed into Texas the night of Aug. 25 as a Category 4 storm, the most powerful hurricane to strike Texas in 56 years. When Harvey reached Houston, the stalled storm hung over the area, dumping enough water to cause the worst flooding in the city’s history.
When they finally made it back to Houston on Aug. 30, the Juckers saw for themselves the devastation Harvey inflicted. About 4½ feet of water spilled over nearby Brays Bayou and entered their retail store and production facility. In photos, it looks like the bakery is a toy bobbing in a lake. The flooding not only ruined perishable inventory, it shot the motors of delivery vans and bakery equipment such as large sheeters and mixers. The bakery is the brand’s nerve center, servicing the two other Three Brothers Bakery locations in Memorial and on Washington.
The Juckers went to work and reopened in 17 days, an astonishingly quick turnaround. They consider themselves fortunate given the flood damage so many other homeowners and small businesses suffered.
After several flooding incidents, they are weary but not broken. And their ability to quickly recover — tapping the right people for flood-claims adjustment, restoration contractors, bank loans — did not go unnoticed on the national level. In April, the U.S. Small Business Administration awarded Bobby and Janice Jucker the 2018 Phoenix Award for Outstanding Small Business Disaster Recovery. The Juckers are proud of the award recognizing small businesses that demonstrate ingenuity and tenacity in the aftermath of disaster.
The couple restored their business after Harvey thanks to a significant SBA loan. But now they look at a future burdened by debt and the more-than-likely possibility of another flood.
The Juckers are among thousands of small businesses the SBA assisted after Harvey. The SBA’s Houston District Office received nearly 103,000 referrals from FEMA for assistance after the storm. Of that number, 12,651 applications for financial assistance were submitted and 3,883 (including the Juckers’) were approved for a total of $445 million in loans for disaster recovery. Though that number takes into account the entire Harvey swath in Texas from Corpus Christi to Beaumont, 90 percent of the SBA applications were from Greater Houston.
That the Juckers were chosen for the SBA Phoenix Award in a year of many disasters affecting American small businesses is remarkable, said Tim Jeffcoat, district director of the SBA Houston District Office.
“It’s truly significant if you think about last year where there was Harvey, Maria, Irma and a number of wildfires and mudslides,” Jeffcoat said. “Out of that immense population, the Juckers were chosen. They are truly resilient. They had a level of preparation for disaster that isn’t completely common in small business. They had a game plan. And they had an amazing staff that was dedicated to the company.”
After so many brushes with catastrophe, the Juckers say they could write the playbook for how to rebound after flooding. Small businesses often call Janice, the business manager, about where to turn and what to do with the bureaucratic paperwork required for financial assistance and compensation from insurance companies.
“If you don’t have money or quick access to money, there’s no reason to muck out your business. You’re not going to make it,” Janice said. “Harvey really amplified this.”
It’s not like they didn’t consider giving up. Bobby remembers that after filling eight 40-foot dumpsters of ruin from their store after Ike, he became severely depressed. “I was ready to toss it in,” he said. Janice, luckily, talked him out of it.
Adversity has made them wiser but not bitter. They’re able to chuckle about Three Brothers being a “poster child for small-business disaster recovery.”
Even so, they’re mindful of people who lost more, who lost their home and belongings. “This was our business, not our home,” Janice said. “So, it wasn’t as emotionally devastating.”
The Juckers are survivors — it’s part of the family legacy. Bobby Jucker is a fifth-generation baker whose family business began in Poland. Three Brothers Bakery was founded in Houston in 1949 by three brothers who survived the Holocaust and made their way to America. Next year the business will mark its 70th anniversary.
By that time, the Juckers may be well into a plan they’re considering that will change the way Three Brothers does business. They may move the retail part of the original store and leave production at South Braeswood. Whatever decision they make, the Juckers are mindful of the Jewish community they serve.
“How do we survive without our customers?” Bobby said. “We can’t.” Even now, business is down 25 percent compared to pre-Harvey sales. It could take them at least three more years, Janice said, to get back to “normal,” and that’s still with bank loans to repay.
The Juckers, however, look on the bright side. They cared for their employees during the flood, they got their business back, and they have the knowledge to literally weather any storm.
“Out of everything bad comes something good,” Janice said.