Oatlands business flooded in Saturday’s downpour
Homes and businesses were left with the clear-up operation after Saturday morning’s torrential half-hour downpour saw water lifting up drain covers and flooding basements.
Hobbies store Craftwise at Oatlands had 600 litres of water pumped out of their shop over the course of Saturday after 22.6mm of rain – 15 times more than Guernsey sees on an average August day – fell between 7 and 8am.
Owner Laura Meinke said the shop had 300 litres of water pumped out in the morning and another 300 litres pumped out after they closed in the afternoon.
‘I just turned on the light on Saturday morning and found the floor soaked through,’ she said.
‘The water seemed to have come up through the floor rather than through any damage to the roof.’
Despite the problems the shop was open almost as normal.
‘It was a normal busy Saturday as far as I was concerned,’ said Mrs Meinke, who was recently nominated for a Pride of Guernsey customer service award.
‘Luckily the only thing damaged were some balls of wool which just soaked up the water, and then the paper bands on them disintegrated.’
She said she was not really sure what had caused the flooding.
‘There is a douit on site that runs underneath at places and that may have backed up, but to be honest we are not really sure. We have certainly never had a problem like this since we took over the shop.’
She praised Sean Wilson from The Carpet Doctor who responded to an emergency call and pumped the water out, before returning in the afternoon and doing it again.
‘He got it sorted out and treated really quickly so we could open, and he was back in the afternoon to finish off. All that’s left is a tiny smell of damp.’
