GALVESTON — Moody Gardens plans to reopen its popular Rainforest Pyramid on April 25, a major step toward the attraction’s full recovery from Hurricane Ike.
But officials will wait to see what kind of crowds the summer brings before bringing the facility’s staffing back to pre-storm levels. When attrition and seasonal job cuts weren’t enough to trim $1 million monthly losses, Moody Gardens laid off another 37 employees in January.
After Ike flooded many of the exhibits and forced officials to close the attraction for about two weeks, staffing dropped to about 500 in December, from a summertime high of 1,000, General Manager John Zendt said. Moody Gardens usually employs about 750 people during the winter months.
But spring break visitors have officials encouraged about a return to normalcy this summer, Zendt said.
During the week when most Texas public schools and universities were on vacation, Moody Gardens averaged between 400 and 500 guests a day, with 1,500 on the weekend, spokeswoman Jerri Hamachek said.
The crowds were 60 percent smaller than they were during the same time in 2006, Hamachek said.
But that was about what officials expected, Zendt said.
“Our big worry was with groups, but they have been coming to the island,” he said. “Those numbers are not that far off. Considering the stuff we’ve read about the drop in tourism (in New Orleans) after Hurricane Katrina, I think we’re doing extremely well.”
Participants in this weekend’s Lone Star Triathlon gave Moody Gardens a boost, bringing even more swimmers, runners and cyclists than they did last year — a good sign, Zendt said.
Later this year, Moody Gardens will continue to lure visitors with several summertime exhibits, including a popular dinosaur display.
But the animals in the Rainforest Pyramid will not return until the fall.
Managers shipped sloths, birds, fish, reptiles, amphibians and bats to zoos all around the country after Ike, and officials plan to complete a major renovation of the Rainforest exhibit before bringing them back, Zendt said.
Officials are still finalizing plans for the renovation project and do not yet know how much it will cost, Hamachek said.
Hurricane Ike left Moody Gardens with about $50 million in damage, much of which has been repaired.
