Lehman’s in Kidron devastated by floods
Carl Croskey was the first employee to arrive at the store at around 5:30 a.m. “When I came in, water had just started coming over the bridge into the parking lot,” he said. “I walked through the store to make a phone call and it started gushing up the ramp. It didn’t last very long--all of a sudden it seemed like something broke loose in the creek and the water went down pretty quickly after that.”
“It’s pretty devastating,” said Galen Lehman, president of Lehman’s. “It was like a tidal wave washing through the store. At 5:30 a.m. it was three feet deep in places. By 7 a.m. it was already leaving and was down to about six to eight inches.”
The rushing water left the store in shambles. “When I walked in, I thought I was going to throw up,” said Glenda Lehman Ervin, vice president of marketing. “I still cannot believe the scope of this mess. Every single nook and cranny is trashed. The stove room filled up first, crested, and then whoosh—it just flowed through the whole store.”
Not an inch of the 32,000-square-foot store was left untouched. Heavy crocks were tossed around and freezers and refrigerators knocked over. The toy area was filled with a two-foot deep pile of ruined toys and items washed in from other departments. Aisles throughout the store were blocked and the floors littered with products swept off the shelves by the floodwaters. Any products remaining on the lower shelves were coated with mud.
Teams of store employees are working around the clock to inventory and remove damaged items and clean up the mud left behind. Volunteers from Valley View Mennonite, Kidron Mennonite, and Central Christian School pitched in to help, along with other Kidron residents. Neighbors Charlene Leimeister and her son, Jacob, heard about the damage and walked over to join the work crew. “It’s just the thing to do,” Leimeister said.
Area businesses offered assistance as well. Gerber Poultry provided lunch for the workers while Ventrac brought tractors to help move items and the local fire department hosed down the parking lot.
Despite the seeming impossibility of the task, Lehman Ervin was optimistic that the store would be open for business Tuesday morning. “We’re going to open the center of the store. We’re triaging what can be saved and working outward toward the ends of the store.”
There were some bright spots, she noted. The warehouse is located off-site in Dalton and wasn’t damaged. No one was hurt, and most of the store’s irreplaceable antiques were high enough to have escaped damage. And while there was damage to outlets, power strips, computers, etc., the electrical system was not significantly damaged.
“We just can’t figure it out. There’s no record of the creek flooding in 100 years,” said Scott Ervin of Green Ridge Builders, who was inspecting the store’s electrical system. He said that had the waters risen above the switchgears, the situation could have been far worse.
While no damage estimates were yet available, the flood was a huge setback in what had been shaping up to be a good business year. When asked how people can help, Lehman Ervin said, “Remember us when we open again. It’ll take a while to recover from this.”
Published: February 28, 2011
