VAN BUREN (KFSM)-The water may be gone now following flooding on Sunday (July 5), but it left its mark on some businesses in the area.
Bill Moore is the general manager of a powder coating company called River City Coatings, Inc. He spent most of his Monday (July 6) mopping and cleaning off equipment after a foot-and-a-half of water flooded his shop.
“I was watching the World Cup Soccer match [yesterday], and my wife was on Facebook, and she saw that Van Buren was flooding,” he said.
After the match, Moore said he drove from Fort Smith to his business located at Sycamore and 3rd Streets.
He says he hasn't taken a full inventory of the damage, but noticed a computer and some documents were ruined.
“We`ve probably got roughly a dozen electric motors. We have seven to eight powder coating paint guns, and they`re very expensive; they`re about $6,000 a piece,” Moore said. “Luckily every one of them is working, so we`re lucky for as much water as we had in the plant.”
Just up the road on S. 4th Street is Hardcastle and Baldridge Barber Shop. They had to close for the day as they mopped up over a foot of water as well.
“I got here probably about 7:30 this morning, and the floors were brown, covered in mud, about probably a quarter-inch or so of mud on the floor,” barber Johnathon Trantham said.
Sunday’s storms dropped nearly six inches of rain in three hours, and police had to be called in to help get stalled cars out of the water.