In three years as the owner of Frank’s Paddlesports Livery and a lifetime as a self-described “river rat,” Peter Bloomquist has learned to respect – and at times, fear – the water. Still, when he read that the United States Geological Survey gage on the White River in Nora reported a water level of 16 feet on Friday morning, he thought it must be an overestimate.
“I’m saying to myself, ‘That is absolute bulls—,'” Bloomquist said. “There’s no freaking way.”
By early on the morning of Aug. 15 the Nora gage read 19 feet. The measurement eventually peaked at 21.18 feet that afternoon. Bloomquist, whose business sits on the west bank of the White River in the Near Northwest-Riverside neighborhood, had already begun hearing from friends farther north who were ankle-deep in floodwater. Late that morning, Frank’s Paddlesports posted a video on Facebook that showed brown-green water rushing past the business’ front door.
Bloomquist considers himself lucky. And compared to many people in Indianapolis, he is.
While Frank’s is “closed until it’s not,” the store out of which Bloomquist rents canoes, kayaks and other equipment did not flood internally. Bloomquist estimates the water level peaked about a quarter-inch from the front door.
“It’s a whole lot of business,” he said of the cancellations and refunds that come with having to shut down temporarily. “There’s gonna be a lot of monetary clean-up efforts at our spot, but it happens. I have a feeling we’ll be just fine with that.”
When it rains golf courses often flood
Over the weekend some central Indiana courses, which spend thousands of dollars per year to carefully distribute water across their greens and fairways, became inundated.
An employee at River Glen Golf Course in Fishers told IndyStar the course was closed at least for the week until water levels subside. At Bluff Creek Golf Course on the Morgan-Johnson county line, most of the course holes were completely covered in water by Sunday. Only a handful of elevated holes stayed dry.
The south-side golf course sits in a natural floodplain near the overwhelmed White River, which crested there at more than 17 feet Aug. 17. Typically, when flooding happens, patrons can still golf half the course, or nine holes, Knieper said.
But this time, Knieper had to shut down Saturday night Aug. 15 and all of Sunday, a severe hit to his business’ bottom line. Per Bluff Creek’s website, the course was still closed Aug. 18.
“This flooding has never happened in the 30 years I’ve been here,” Knieper said.
Knieper is hoping for cloudy and dry skies this week as the water recedes. Intense sunshine would heat up the water covering the course, which could further damage the grass, he said. On Monday, Knieper was focused on making it through the day.
“We can still be OK as long as this water goes down,” he said.
Unplanned closures are a hassle for any business. Then there are the ones that essentially can’t close, like the Hotel Broad Ripple on Westfield Boulevard directly across from the White River.
“It’s kind of hard to just close a hotel when people are counting on being there,” said owner and manager Debbie Hasbrook.
Hasbrook, who opened the boutique hotel in 2014 and has expanded it from nine rooms to 20 across four buildings, said she thought she was in the clear Saturday afternoon. Then, sometime between 4 and 5 p.m., she noticed water seeping into the basement of one of the hotel’s buildings. She suspects a storm drain got backed up and began leaching water through the hotel’s old drain tiles.
The hotel staff spent the rest of Saturday and all of Sunday clearing out water with industrial-grade pumps rented from a restoration company. Hasbrook relocated several of her guests to one of the property’s unaffected buildings, which allowed the hotel to stay open all weekend.
Still, the damages were hardly inconsequential: Hasbrook hasn’t fully taken stock, but she may need to purchase new refrigerators, washing and drying machines and possibly a new furnace. She said most businesses in her neighborhood, including Hotel Broad Ripple, stopped paying for flood insurance in the late 2010s after the construction of the flood wall that runs along the east side of the White River and Central Canal.
“I think we have to push through ourselves,” Hasbrook said. “We’re in good shape now. It is what it is.”
Broad Ripple Village Association Executive Director Mary Dicken told IndyStar in an email that many of the neighborhood’s businesses had to close Saturday, though the area doesn’t appear to have sustained as extensive damage as others. Many businesses have set up donation boxes or pledged to donate a portion of their proceeds to Indianapolis Flood Relief.
And they are hardly the only small-business owners trying to assist their less fortunate peers while dealing with their own quagmires.
On Saturday when it became clear to Bloomquist that Frank’s Paddlesports Livery would survive the storm, he drove up to Rocky Ripple with his wife and a colleague. There, they joined an estimated 1,000 volunteers, hauling and stacking sandbags along the town’s levee until Bloomquist and his companions were “about two sandbags from tearing a bicep or throwing our backs out.”
Though the outdoorsman said he is terrified of what could happen if conditions worsen, particularly with Carmel’s sewer line, he was still moved by what he and his neighbors accomplished that evening.
“I don’t know what’s next,” he said. “Right now we gotta help out our neighbors. That’s what Hoosiers do.”
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Indy-area businesses grapple with flooding, look to support each other
Reporting by Bradley Hohulin and Alysa Guffey, Indianapolis Star / Indianapolis Star
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Bradley Hohulin and Alysa Guffey, Indianapolis Star | USA TODAY Network
