Manitou Springs Loses 74 Jobs

Manitou Springs is not exactly a household name when it comes to vacations, after all there are a lot of places to visit in this world and most of us have not visited this small city in Utah. The city describes itself in the following terms, “Hidden between Garden of the Gods and America’s most famous mountain, Pikes Peak, lies the magical town of Manitou Springs. “Manitou”, a Native American word for “spirit”, describes this beautiful mountain community. Eleven naturally carbonated mineral spring fountains, located throughout this Historic town, run free for all who wish to enjoy the healing benefits. The Ute, Cheyenne and other Native Americans considered this area sacred for the healing springs and clean mountain air.”

Well it looks like the city will have to continue on with its marketing plan without the help of a number of workers from a number of local businesses. The city an announced that the local businesses have laid off about 74 workers. The reason for these layoffs, and most likely a lot more in the way of devastation is the Waldo Canyon Fire. Since the layoffs can from multiple companies the rules of a mass layoff action do not apply, despite the fact that the numbers more than support that kind of an action.

For those of you who have not been following the news the fire’s current condition is best described by local incident response system, which said the following about the fire in a news update, “The Waldo Canyon Fire is the most destructive in Colorado history, with 346 homes lost. Waldo Canyon started on June 23, three miles west of Colorado Springs. Three days later, on June 26, it exploded eastward toward the city, engulfing several neighborhoods.  Evacuations peaked on June 27 at 32,000.  On June 29, President Obama arrived in Colorado Springs to visit burned neighborhoods, thank firefighters, and visit a Red Cross evacuation center. The cause of the fire remains under investigation.”

As you can imagine these kinds of layoffs are the worst kind, as the workers who have lost their jobs also have to worry about losing their homes right away. On the 24^th city called for a mandatory evacuation of the city, resulting in a further loss of business. The tweet announcing that evacuation said, “WALDO CANYON FIRE UPDATE Manitou Springs evacuated. Fire hasn’t reached City. No structures impacted. Residents shouldn’t return to city.” The day after the city downgraded to a voluntary evacuation with the threat of another mandatory if the situation changed. The text of that tweet said, “Mandatory evacuation for Manitou Springs ended. Voluntary evacuation remains. Fire remains active. Mandatory evacuation still possible.”

For now, as the fire begins to wind down and the emergency service workers begin to get things under control for the first time in days the question remains, will the 15 different businesses that laid off the workers be thinking about rehiring when things get back to normal, or has all of this simply been to much for the local economy to handle? Could this fire have wiped away more than woods and homes, could it have extinguished these positions forever?