Clean-up underway on Riverside Drive

Brett Covington and a friend pause for a moment in the debris of Hardware City

Devastation is the only word to describe the scene on Riverside Drive in the aftermath of catastrophic flooding on the Cumberland River.

Heartbreak coupled with determination is the only way to describe the attitude of dozens of business owners faced with a massive clean-up and and subsequent rebuilding or renovation.

According to Mayor Johnny Piper, more than 140 businesses have been adversely impacted by the flood, many of them on Riverside Drive which was swamped by up to eight feet of water.

For Andy’s Pharmacy at the corner of Kraft Street ad Riverside Drive, the flood was a second blow; the shop had barely opened in 2009 when road construction to rebuild that intersection made accessing the location difficult if not impossible. The flood, which brought three feet of water inside, was a second punch.

At City Trends in Two Rivers Mall, racks of clothing in the extensive store were soaked and cakes with mud. Over four feet of water filled that location, and inventory is a total loss. With Two Rivers Center emerging from the floodwaters, the future of 1000 employees on the line. The mall included Hooters, City Trends, Mama’s Southern Cooking, Casablanca and  Convergys, one of the city’s largest employers. Indications from the corporate office in Ohio are that Convergys would remain in the city.

John, Elke and Richard Gilbreath of Golden Eagle Jewelry

At Golden Eagle Jewelry, “all the counters had moved around, carried by the water,” according to owners John and Elke Gilbreath, who have owned the store or 30 years.

“Everything is totaled,” Elke said, pointing to an array of art, sculpture, and of course, jewelry. “I can remember when the river has overrun the banks,” she recalled, referring to the flood of 1975.

Upon entering the shop post-flood, she didn’t recognize the layout of the store;  four to five feet of waters had floated and shifted many of the display cases.  Among the oddities of the aftermath: a ceramic shelf angel perched a scant few inches above a muddy waterline, and a receipt machine with a pristine white copy of a sales slip — a record of the last sale before the storm. An exquisite 19th century bronze stood in regal form on a pedestal irrevocably damaged.

Chairs line the walk outside Golden Eagle Jewelry.

Friday was Elke’s birthday, and a reminder that just over two years ago she was shot but survived a home  invasion. Walking a line between wry humor and tears, Elke moved through the store while crews removed potentially salvageable items, pushed water and the ever-present red clay mud and water out the door. generators provided energy for pumps and fans in the darkened shop. All the cabinetry and fixtures are ruined. the Gilbreaths were fortunate to have removed some of the paperwork prior to the flood.

In one of the may quirky things discovered post-flood, an employee clearing out the ladies room inspected sparkling items in the sink’s drain — jewelry carried on floodwaters.

“Don’t put anything down the drain,” Elke said, making a mental note to have the trap removed and the jewelry salvaged. John and Elke Gilbreath are determined to refurbish the building and reopen their store as soon as possible.

The Deans, of Relocation Realty attend Mayor Johnny Piper's second disaster briefing on Friday.

At Relocation Realty, Trevor Dean was already in “we are going to reopen” mode. His offices were devoid of furnishings, and drywall was cut to chair rail level, with all the sodden sheetrock already hauled curbside. Mrs. Dean, armed with a claw hammer, was diligently pulling nails from the studs. The Deans noted with a bit of amusement that they actually found fish in their offices — “some crappie and some minnows,” they said.

“We were badly hit,” Dean said, “but the plan is to re-open.” Dean plans to be at his desk — a card table — in the front entry on Monday morning. He laughed, noting “It (the office) may look bad, but we are still in business. ”

Joyce Vanderbilt, whose restaurant, Kelly’s Big Burger was featured in the January issue of Business Clarksville Magazine, put a positive spin to the damage her diner sustained.

What's left of Kelly's Big Burger; it will be completely gutted in the next week.

“I’ve been wanting a new restaurant,” she said with a wry smile. One pavement beside the building, three employees, Renee, Donna and Christie, hunched over buckets of sanitizing cleaners, salvaging what they could of flatware and stainless steel pots and other items. It amounted to the smallest fraction when compared to the total loss.

Inside, only the counter and the posts of stools remained. Shelves were cake with mud, and all the appliances and freezers were destroyed. “The flood even moved the walk-in cooler,” Vanderbilt said. Above the four- to five-foot waterline was a large dry erase board with the hand-written menu of the last business day. The doors and windows were caked with the muddy residue of flooding.

Vanderbilt and her husband, Ed, are planning to rebuild the interior and re-open, optimistically, in June. “We have to find and buy equipment, and rebuild everything.”  Vanderbilt was amazed that “we got so much done in a day,” but adds, “we are taking it one day at a time.” The Vanderbilts had warm praise for Mayor Johnny Piper, who stopped by the restaurant during the clean-up. They were equally impressed with the coordination of services and the speed with with help was mobilized for those affected by the flood.

Outside the restaurant, the Vanderbilts, their employees, and friend Debbie Hunt took a break, sitting at iron table with beach umbrellas still intact, a hint at what the business looked like pre-flood. Vanderbilt is confident that they will be up and running soon.

Renee Stepp, Donna and Christie Hall clean what little is salvageable at Kelly's Big Burger

John Cox and a crew of friends and volunteers was emptying the first floor of Mary’s Music. Cox was lucky enough to occupy two floors in the building, so he had somewhere to place a lot of his merchandise and business records.

“I’ve had tons of help, and I have a lot of space upstairs. And tall shelf space downstairs,” Cox explained, adding that once the waters reached about three feet from his front door, around 6 a.m. Monday, he moved as much as possible  from the downstairs showroom. He, along with many other business owners, was frustrated by the fact that by the time he received a flood crest projection, that crest had come and gone and the water was rising still higher. The water rose to about four feet inside his music shop.

John Cox of Mary's Music

Cox is committed to reopening as soon as possible, but plans to operate from that second floor almost immediately.

Like many other businesses, Cox reaped the benefit of help from a cadre of volunteers — soldiers from Fort Campbell who converged on hard hit areas in several sections of the city. They  provided the brawn to hustle out damaged appliances, rip up wet, mud soaked carpeting, tear out sodden wallboard, and create curbside mountains of debris for the city’s Street Department to pick up.

Linda Austin of Austin’s Beauty College at 585 Riverside Drive, managed to rescued all her student files, computers and disks, and the records she and her student need. “I managed to save some of the products used by students and sold to customers.”

Everything else is beyond salvaging: tables, chairs, washers and dryers, and about 20 additional beauty stations in storage at the far end of her building. Like many other, she is planning to re-open, and will also set up a temporary shop at another location.

Curves, which shared that building, had furnishings and equipment — including a brocade chaise, piled in the parking lot, unsalvageable. A strong gust of wind captured a rolling storage chest, pushing across the parking lot.

In that same plaza, The Red Cross office sat dark and unattended; it was uncertain how much water entered that building, but the Red Cross and its volunteers have relocated to Hilldale Baptist Church, from which they are directing shelter operations and a mobile canteen service for those involved in the clean-up. Beside them, Youth Villages staff were hauling out furniture and office equipment. Many of the small businesses in that plaza were hit with one to four feet of water.

The popular nightspot, Reasons, which sits on the river side of Riverside Drive, was completely renovated last fall. Today the contents of the building were being hauled out piece by soggy piece. Tommy Cork said Reasons had approximately three to three-and-a-half feet of water inside. He is planning to clean it out, clean it up and reopen as soon as possible.

The new Sir Pizza was surrounded by saturated furnishing and colorful vending machines. The Water Street Event Center, a showpiece in the riverfront district, stood with its doors opened wide, but not a vehicle in sight. The center’s parking lot was crusted with mud dried to a scaling pattern by heavy winds. The lavish tiered decks with the river view were still in the river, and the slowly emerging shoreline was caked with inches of slippery clay choking shrubs and coating stones.

Hardware City debris; the Covington' family estimated $400,000 in merchandise was lost

Perhaps the most spectacular damage in terms of sheer volume occurred at Hardware City, where, according to owners the Covington family, some $400,000 in inventory has been ruined. Hardware City’s parking lot was an edge-to-edge pile, a full three feet deep, of debris and ruined merchandise, many of that items of very small size.

Tractors pushed the mud-soaked mess into piles and a Street Department grapple wrestled  chunks of ruined merchandise and display material into dump trucks to be hauled away. What was piled outside was only the beginning of the clean-up at that location.

The familiar array of rocking chairs and wicker porch furnishings still sat on high shelving outside the store, almost beckoning customers. Brett Covington, friends and employees hauled what seemed to be an endless stream of product from store to street.

Fire Department crew use the high pressure fire hoses to wash away the mud.

Throughout the day a variety of city crews and equipment circled the district in a symphony of disaster management. First everything ruined was dragged to the curb for pick-up by Street Department crews.  Fire trucks and professional cleaning companies hosed down parking lots and streets to rid them of mud, layer by layer. Once the bulk of the caking mud was gone, additional equipment moved in the repeat the street cleaning process. The mud was stubborn, and only multiple hosings will remove it. Throughout the process, police were vigilant, and only legitimate workers, business owners, volunteers and media were allowed access. The area remains under curfew for another night.

With assistance from more than 500 volunteer soldiers from Fort Campbell, many businesses found that what might have taken many days or weeks to do on their own was done in a matter of hours.

What was consistent among all the business owners was an overwhelming appreciation for the volunteer help and praise for the efficiency and kindness with which the city and county response has been delivered.

Riverside Drive will be open to through traffic Sunday night at 6 p.m.

Photos by Kelly A. LaPlante