Columbus – Flooding has damaged two businesses in the Columbus Commons shopping center this week. Four units in total were damaged Friday night into Saturday morning.

 

Blue Waters Pool and Spas and Larkin’s Carolina Grill are making repairs after flooding occurred the evening of Fri., July 22 and into the following morning. According to Aileen Bonnell, general manager at Blue Waters, two inches of water came raining down from overhead on Saturday morning.

 

“The water was coming from the conference center above us, and we’ve had to relocate for 30 days or more until the store gets renovated,” Bonnell said. “We’ve spent Saturday and Sunday, literally two days, moving the store. It’s been a back breaking four days.”

Bonnell said she received an emergency call on Saturday morning telling her that the ceiling had been falling in and there was water damage to her store coming from a loose fitting in a sink in the conference center above Blue Waters. A 911 call was placed to dispatchers on Saturday morning at 7 a.m.

 

“We had a small flood on Monday last week that damaged a third of the store from the back, but we cleaned that up on Wednesday,” Bonnell said. “There had been some remodeling upstairs and the Polk Wellness Center just started there in May.”

 

On Wednesday afternoon, Bonnell said the store is back to 100 percent functionality except for the phone lines in the store. She explained three computers, a printer and some merchandise had been damaged by the flooding over the weekend and that the flooding really only hurt her sales.

 

“It’s going to be about $50,000 to repair all of this, and that’s on the extremely high end once you figure in the insurance claim and the remodeling repairs,” Bonnell said. “We’re also about three weeks behind on schedule of putting in pools and spas, so this really puts the icing on the cake. We’ll be reimbursed by the insurance company afterwards, but we haven’t figured out who they are who is responsible.”

 

The store will need drywall and carpet repairs, as well as replaced computers. Bonnell said moving into the temporary suite next door also adds having to pay rent for two spaces and she said she wanted to thank the local church who moved out of the suite for allowing Blue Waters to occupy the space temporarily.

 

Jason Cole is the manager of Larkin’s Carolina Grill next door and said a supply line connected to a sink in the conference center burst upstairs above the pool store and restaurant Friday night. The damage dealt to the restaurant is in the bar area of the restaurant and affected the wall up separating the restaurant from Blue Waters and the carpet in the area.

Larkin’s was closed part of the day Saturday to assess the damage dealt by the flooding overhead and to do cleanup and had limited seating available after reopening that afternoon. Cole said water had been seeping down the wall from the ceiling and into the floor below, adding he got two inches of water damage as well.

 

Stenzel Development out of Tryon is repairing the damage in Larkin’s Grill. ServiceMaster was on the scene Saturday morning and throughout the week to clean up the damage and dry the stores out with wet vacuums and other equipment, and Cole said the water began leaking after everyone on his staff went home for the night Friday.

“It wasn’t until Saturday morning that we saw the damage because it happened overnight Friday,” Cole said. “The carpet needs to be replaced and the drywall will be redone. I don’t know how much it’s going to cost yet, but we are still operational.”