CHAPEL HILL — Merchants at the Eastgate Shopping Center in Chapel Hill are just happy to be there. Many stores are celebrating a reopening this weekend, almost two months after a devastating flood.

A stormflooded the storesback in July. Some businesses were shut down for six weeks, but hard work has paid off with a successful recovery.

"We had a lot of sheetrock to replace, some equipment to replace," says restaurant owner David Stanford. "Fortunately, we didn't have to replace our customers. They were here."

Many of the same stores also flooded during Hurricane Fran in 1996. Merchants want their landlord or town leaders to take measures to prevent another flood from disrupting their businesses.