One of our local casinos, The Empress Casino, caught fire yesterday as the result of construction activities in an area being revamped.

It's a big deal to the local economy since that casino supplies about 6% of the local governmental budget each month just from gaming. In addition, tax revenues at restaurants, bars and motels and retailers in the area are sure to take quite a hit. It also puts about 900 people out of work directly employed by Empress in a market where current unemployment is already about 11.5%. Other local businesses are also sure to be affected, especially suppliers and vendors of the casino, hotel and restaurant.

The fire began around 10 yesterday morning and at 9 last night there were still nearly a hundred fire trucks racing around the area to fill with water since the main supplying the hydrants on location could not supply enough water to fight such a large fire. This morning the fire trucks are gone and have been replaced by news media trucks which were staging beside the road to take their turn at filming segments for the news broadcasts.

Link to a Yahoo search on the story yields lots of links to photos and video as well as written stories…

Empress Casino Burns

Hmmmmmmmmmmmm

Arson maybe?