BUSINESSES FACE DELUGE OF PROBLEMS
Beleaguered business owners are cleaning and counting up costs after unprecedented flooding led to destruction throughout Lynn on Sunday.
“It was the most devastating thing we’ve had to deal with in the city, certainly in my term and maybe my lifetime,” City Councilor-at-Large Brian LaPierre told the Herald. “No one would have predicted this. I think it took a lot of people by surprise.”
The torrential downpour dumped over 8 inches of rain in about two hours, according to the National Weather Service, rapidly filling the low-lying streets of Lynn with about 3 feet of water. The basement of Loomos Bros. Liquor Store on Boston Street was brimming with water up to the ceiling.
Owner Harry Loomos, 42, was still pumping out the basement yesterday.
“When I opened the door to the basement the water line was even with the first floor. It’s brutal,” Loomos said. “This has never happened before, ever. And we’ve owned the place for 110 years.”
Between the liquor store and a nearby multifamily home he owns, Loomos was worried that he could see similar damage to a storm last fall, which cost him about $25,000 when he had to replace two boilers and three hot water heaters. He stopped storing liquor in the basement after that flood.
Alan Ginesky, owner of Atlantic Liquidators on Bennett Street, put seven pumps in his basement after the same storm in 2017. That flood cost him $60,000 just to clean up. He said he’s adding two more after Sunday’s rainfall still left him with about 10 inches of water in his basement.
“I couldn’t get here when it was at its worst. It took me a long time and I only got as far as the back of the building,” Ginesky said. “I couldn’t get near the front of the building without a canoe.”
The flooding last fall took a toll of nearly $1 million in damaged furniture, and he’s estimating $200,000 to $300,000 of lost inventory this time around.
“It is frustrating. It’s absolutely frustrating,” Ginesky said. “It’s tough enough making money … now you got this? It’s unnecessary.”
Al Wilson, founder of Beyond Walls, a nonprofit creative space, is raising money for Lynn businesses that don’t have flood insurance and now have to swallow the costs.
The nonprofit is currently running a mural festival, ending Sunday, in which 25 artists from around the world are putting up large-scale pieces of art on buildings across the city. The downpour flooded the organizations’s warehouse and washed away some of the work, so artists are doing damage control before the end of the festival.
“It severely impacted us,” Wilson said. “It’s super challenging. We had to wait for the water to disperse to start the cleanup effort, which took us well into the night.”
City Councilor-at-Large Brian Field is hoping that the city might receive state or federal funding to help in the aftermath of what officials are calling a “historic flood.”
“I’m hopeful but they have to record everything,” Field said. “If they tear into the carpet they have to take pictures of what they’re doing so they can get to that threshold. It’s going to take a lot of people, it’s going to take a lot of pressure ... but everybody’s got to work together to help.”