Conversations around what could have been done to mitigate last week's flooding have swirled around Estevan, as businesses continue to asses the damages they faced. The Orpheum Theatre has announced that it's closing its doors due to flooding. A&A Jewellery shared that $75,000 of inventory was damaged. Jenny Joans had flooding in their storage basement caused by the storm. Many members of the community have taken to social media to point out that the construction downtown had a large part in the flooding, while some businesses found it to be a case of bad timing.
"None of this was caused by anything that could have been avoided. It's all cleanable. It's all fixable. This basically solidifies to be why we needed this correction and replacement of all the infrastructure and sewer we've had. We've had problems for years and years and years, so I think the negativity really doesn't help. I think there's just misinformation and I think we just need to go back to why we did this in the first place," shared Jenny Pettitt, owner of Jenny Joans.
Flooding incidents that follow heavy rainfall aren't new to Estevan, and businesses on 4th Street have weathered the storm in the past. Still optimistic about the project, Pettitt notes that the Downtown Revitalization Project wouldn't have impacted the flooding, even if it didn't happen. "I'm not sure this wouldn't have happened to some degree, even if we didn't have already begun digging. We've always had these issues, not to this degree, but that was just unfortunate timing. I think that was, you know, [a] force of nature that this much water came in at in such a short time. We've had some other issues in the building that were, you know, roof leakage where we've never had roof leakage. So, I think a lot of this would have happened anyways."
She said she's spoken to other businesses on 4th Street, both inside the Downtown Business Association and outside. The sentiment around the construction is mixed around the business community. "We've got a lot of people who are feeling that this should have never happened. I feel like there's a certain crowd that just are stuck on 'this should have never taken place - and we don't feel any way like that at Jenny Jones. We understand why it needed to be done."
"In the end, we're going to be able to clean it up. It's going to go forward. These people who are working on this project have done many projects like this before. This isn't their first time doing this type of project of this scale either. They have completed many other similar projects and bigger projects and have gone through similar situations and it's going to be fine," Pettitt added.
Regardless of the storm, construction rolls on for the two blocks of 4th Street. She noted that this project is just another bump in the road and that 'short term pain, long term gain'.
"Quite honestly, there really has been minimal interruption, minimal inconvenience. We've really not seen a lot and maybe we're one of the luckier ones where we're situated. We haven't had really any interruption of service. Certainly we are still functioning, so I still feel like, you know, this is a big bump in the road. I mean, it's not to say it wasn't. It's definitely a lot of inconvenience today. It's a mess and it's ugly and we're making the best of it. But, I still feel positive and I feel like the payoff in the end is going to be, you know, tenfold."