Rob Marche was helping a friend with his flooding basement Saturday morning when he got a telephone call that told him it was really time for him to bail.
Marche is the owner of MegaTrends Embroidery located at 9 Union Street at the bottom of Elizabeth Street on the city’s west side. The rear wall of his building was destroyed when snow and ice from a hill behind the business plowed into it Saturday.
It was one of several businesses to suffer damage as a result of a water main break on Elizabeth Street Saturday after torrential rain inflicted its wrath on many parts of the west coast.
Marche had just helped a buddy free up weeping tile and on his way to pick up some materials when a business owner from the Union Street area texted him a picture and asked him if it was his business in the photo.
Marche replied "no," but when he took another glimpse he realized it was his place and he knew it could be a sight for sore eyes when he showed up to assess the damage.
“My reaction was get there as quick as you can because the water around my equipment could play havoc on me,” Marche said. “It all happened so quick. Nobody had a chance to get ready for it.”
Marche captured the damage to his property and other places around the city on video and there are several others in the area who felt the impact on the persistent rainfall.
Fortunately, Marche found his equipment was safe, largely because another wall had separated the heavy flooding from the danger zone when it comes to the expense he would have had to deal with if the water made its way through the wall.
Other than closing up shop for a few days to clean up the mess around the business Marche is thankful that life will go on as normal now that water levels have receded.
He’s lived here all of his life and he’s seen several January thaws but nothing like the destruction that resulted from Saturday’s heavy rainfall and high winds.
“There is no snow left. I’ve never seen it before," he said.