NEW ORLEANS -- Many business owners say they are frustrated to exhaustion with how common these floods seem to be and they are all too familiar with the chore of drying out, and cleaning up.
The heavy storm that pounded New Orleans Friday afternoon with rain and wind swept away a night of profits.
"And it sat maybe an hour and half to two hours," said Elray Holmes.
It turned a chaotic night, into a lengthy morning for Elray Holmes to open back up. But that was only what it was like inside of businesses.
Outside, weather came down so quickly it made streets like Basin virtually impassable. It was hard to get anywhere, including down the street on Orleans Ave.
"The manhole in front of the storm drain in front of the restaurant blew off like a top," restaurateur Greg Sonnier said.
The rising flood waters came as a frightening sight for Sonnier who runs Gabrielle Restaurant.
"We were probably going to open, I want to say maybe, we were planning to open the week after the flood."
The waters gave Sonnier flashbacks of what happened last year. He says just as he was about to finish renovations, it was hit twice by the July and August flooding.
Before that, Sonnier had been waiting 12 years to reopen since Hurricane Katrina took out his old location on Esplanade.
"I was very much thinking of starting to raise equipment and get everything off the ground to prepare for the water to get inside," Sonnier said.
He can't even imagine what would have happened if the rain didn't stop when it did.
"I just don't know why the rain just picks on this area," he said.
He's floating around the idea for the city to block drivers from moving through flooded streets to prevent water from gushing into businesses like his, but that can only help so much.
"We just can't have it flood, and it's going to hurricane season too, and that is not a good sign."
And for now all he can do is hope that rain will just pick on another place.