46 Inches of Floodwater Later, Pacific Lumber Still Recovering

The recovery process hasn’t been quick for businesses damaged by heavy flooding in December.

Pacific Lumber Co. in Pacific, Missouri, is still working to get back to business as usual after floodwaters rose to 46 inches within the company’s retail showroom and warehouse.

Pacific Lumber primarily serves professional contractors, and business didn’t stop despite the store’s water damage. But gutting the buildings and making full repairs have become a months-long process.

The flooding began Dec. 24 as heavy rain fell and the nearby Meramec River began to swell.

“It was pretty much nonstop, three to four days of down pouring, torrential rain,” Patrick Hawkins, general manager of Pacific Lumber, says.

On Dec. 28, the staff at Pacific Lumber was making makeshift platforms out of lumber to raise inventory off the floor by 3 feet, just in case water got in the store.

The next day, the Meramec River had so overflowed its banks that water was covering the parking lot a mile away at Pacific Lumber and the local police department had closed nearby roads.

On Dec. 29, the police took Hawkins by Humvee to the store so he could grab a computer containing most of Pacific Lumber’s records, but he was under strict instructions to get the computer and immediately leave.

“When I opened the door of the store, the water was around the store but it was not in the store yet,” Hawkins says. “I was starting to see the water creep in around the walls. It was that really eerie feeling of, ‘It’s coming and there’s no way to stop it.’”

After that, no one could get closer than roughly 500 feet from the business due to a police checkpoint barring people from getting close to the water.

“Then all we could do the next few days was get as close as possible and watch the devastation happen,” Hawkins says.

Six days after the deluge began, police allowed Hawkins and his employees to return to the business because the water in the store was gone. The staff headed to the store on New Year’s Day.

“It was a shock,” Hawkins says. “From the back of the store, things had floated all the way to the front of the store.”

Wood inside was warped, office furniture was destroyed, laminate flooring was coming apart and displays of windows and doors, siding and molding were ruined. Water had risen 16 inches above the office desks.

“It just takes your breath away to see. Being here 27 years, you’d just never imagine something like that,” Hawkins says. “You walk in and there’s an odor. There’s that musty smell. No electricity. All we had was flashlights.”

The business does have flood insurance, and the staff worked quickly and diligently to cut out ruined drywall, rip out wet insulation, spray for mold and throw away everything that was irreparably damaged. They filled six dumpsters or so, Hawkins says.

“Everybody got in and worked and gave it their all,” he says.

Hawkins hired other local businesses to do the repairs, but thinks another six weeks is how long it will take to get the store fully repaired.

The store was closed for about a week, but even during the initial cleanup phase, Pacific was able to continue taking orders from contractors and delivering to job sites.

“We’re still functioning as a business with contractors coming in,” Hawkins says. “We don’t have the doors back on the offices yet. Each of us tries to do our own little thing to get things back together. And then the phone rings. A contractor comes in. That comes first. It’s a balancing act of doing that all at one time.”

Read about Wilson Carter Supply in Denton, North Carolina, which is also recovering from winter flooding.