Last week’s flash flood had a varying impact on Westlock businesses, some of which had their whole basements flooded and others escaping with minimal damage.
At the Royal Canadian Legion, the downstairs lounge was completely flooded up to 18 to 20 inches, resulting in the elevator shaft filling up with about six feet of water.
Paul Taverner, maintenance manager with the Legion, said tiles also fell on the pool table and their speakers were all submerged and ruined.
However, they did manage to save the karaoke machine and all the memorabilia stored on site, such as First World War uniforms, are fine as they were stored above the water line.
Taverner indicated the Legion was flooded in two separate incidents occurring two and three years ago. The first time it took five months to repair because they found asbestos, and in the second incident, it was flooded with five inches or so of water and it took a month to replace the drywall.
Given the severity of this flood, the damage this time could amount to tens of thousands of dollars, he said.
“It will take at least a month just to put together an inventory of what is damaged. It’s astronomical how much work is involved,” he said.
Taverner noted the downstairs will be closed for the duration of the repairs and the catina will be open upstairs as a relief bar on limited hours. Otherwise, it should be business as usual upstairs.
At Arth’s Fashion Store, manager Colton Arth said their basement was totally flooded; at the worst spots, there was almost a foot of water.
Arth said they pumped as much water out of the basement as they could, though it came in as fast as they could pump it.
Arth said they had quite a bit of seasonal inventory in the basement and they had to rush it upstairs to avoid being drenched.
Overnight, the water level slowly went down and they had fans set up on Tuesday trying to dry out the basement.
Losing their basement poses a challenge because that is where the store does its receiving and their new fall products are coming in, he said.
At Pollard Equipment Repairs in the industrial park, their shop was flooded with about a foot of brown, smelly water that washed away from the auction market pens to the west.
Trevor Pollard, who has operated Pollard Equipment Repairs since 1986, said he has experienced flooding in his shop at least 20 times in that time period.
He said that each time it has flooded, it takes about a day for the water to go down and another day to clean up the mess.
He said he has complained to the Town of Westlock about the poor drainage in the area, but so far, they feel their complaints have fallen on deaf ears.
There were many dramatic images taken during the flood, though the most prominent was probably the images of Sobeys staff and owners Tom and Susan Vesely rowing a canoe across their submerged parking lot.
Tom explained he was walking into the store with his son Jason when he saw the canoe set up on display for a summer barbecue promotion.
He suggested it would be a lot of fun to allow the staff to go for a parking-lot canoe paddle, as well as a good team-building exercise.
“So I asked the staff and they thought it would be fun,” Tom said. “So my meat manager Paul Kuschminder and myself took the canoe off the display and let the staff go for a paddle. They had a blast and it was great for morale.”
Despite having their parking lot flooded, the main building managed to escape damage.
Tom said the water was within about one foot of the loading dock and front door, which would have resulted in a total store flood.
Their saving grace was calling Brost Aggregate, who brought over a front loader to push the water away from the door and onto the road.
“The major issue will be the parking lot silt and gravel that was left behind from the receding water,” he said.
The Westlock Inn also had its front parking lot turned into a lake during the flood, but they were able to escape with “very minimal damage,” said general manager Alex Juhasz.
“The basement got water in it, but we had sump pumps that were able to keep up and get (the water) out very quickly,” he said.
Juhasz noted there was some small cosmetic damage to one of the sidewalks and the rocks out in front, and the liquor store ended up with some water on the carpets.
As the parking lot filled up with water, Juhasz said their maintenance worker would get keys from guests and then move their cars to higher ground.
The other vehicles that were left in the water were gone the next day, “so they must have started them and got them out,” Juhasz said.
Westlock Bowl Don Cloutier said their floor and subfloor was flooded with water, but they managed to get their pumps running early.
Cloutier posted on Facebook last Friday that their league set-up on Sept. 5 will have to be delayed.
“At this time, we do not know the extent of the damage ... We may know possibly more by the end of next week,” he said.
•With files from Sean Steels and Les Dunford
