It got a bit damp on the inside…
Living in Lake Macquarie, Newcastle or the Lower Hunter, we’ve started to get used to the erratic weather patterns – particularly this summer, one of the wettest on record. We were in our current location when the fateful weather event that grounded the Pasha Bulker hit our region. We didn’t get a drop of water inside our shop on that occasion, nor have we had issues in the past.
Now those of you who have been to our little shop would instantly recognise that the building is old, and in places, could benefit from the assistance of a skilled tradesman. We don’t push this issue with our landlord, because we are being charged a fair rent and we have a fantastic car park for our customers, right behind the shop. In short, we take the line of not disturbing the landlord, he won’t bother us 
.
Last Friday – the 10th of Feb 2012 – our region got hit by another of those “freak storms”. This time we weren’t so lucky. Three of our four fluro light fittings had water gushing out of them, just like a fireman was standing on the roof aiming his fire hose through them. Just a freak combination of wind and rain that overwhelmed our gutters and pooled on our flat roof, had water gushing out of the light fittings and into our shop.
Young Shane and David – thanks Guys – did a fantastic job of “bucket brigade”. Thankfully, we have a number of large plastic tubs in our shop – these are used by the Tech’s to “pick and pack” new customer ordered computer systems. The Tech and the tub then go to the workshop, build the new system for our customers and the process starts over again. Having these large tubs made life much easier – unfortunately it didn’t stop us from personally getting soaked, but we were able to save a lot of the shops contents from water damage.
Justin and his offsider from Hunter United Pest Control had just dropped a computer in for repair – all dressed in white shirts and ties – I think it was milliseconds before they were looking like they’ve stepped into the shower with their clothes on. Sorry Guys – but thank you very much for the help. I reckon that I’d be struggling to think of better people to be surrounded by, when in trouble.
Sue came up from our Swansea shop as soon as I phoned, bringing a dozen or so old towels. Once the water stopped torrenting (I checked - that’s a weather word too) in we all started walking on towels, taking them outside, ringing them out and repeating the process over and over. If you look closely at the counter, you can see the “high tide” mark – we must have had about 5 centimetres of water over the floor. A whole bunch of laser printer toner cartridges went swimming, because we stack them under the bench, on the floor. Yes, covered by insurance, but still a darn nuisance, to say the least.
Thankfully, none of our customer repairs got wet! Yes, we have insurance for that sort of thing too – it’s called “goods in custody insurance”. I’m especially grateful that we do not need to use that policy!
The shop is in two sections – retail out the front and workshop out the back. Not a single drop of water got into the back section, even though it is under the same roof.
The guys from Network Restoration Services (NRS) have several blowers and a large de-humidifier that they installed on Saturday morning. Sue removed most of the water, by working until just after midnight with a wet and dry vacuum cleaner. The NRS guys said that she did a fantastic job. The blowers have been running all weekend. So hopefully these guys will clean our carpet on Monday morning, after the electrician and builder have been to do the best they can…probably very little to be done to combat a freak outburst of nature such as this. Again, thank you to everyone that helped and those who offered to help. Just goes to show that most humans are pretty fantastic, especially when they see another in distress…