Wednesday, August 16, 2006

Businesses cleaning up after damage from flooding, heavy rainfall

Jackie Schlotfeldt News-Bulletin Staff Writer; jschlotfeldt@news-bulletin.com

Belen Clean-up efforts continue for flood-damaged properties in Belen and, while the forecast is showing more rain possible, residents and business owners are pushing forward, assessing the damage and trying to make the necessary repairs.

It's been two weeks since 3.2 inches of rain ravaged the city of Belen and wreaked havoc for many in the area. Earlier rains also caused some of the damage.

Robert Noblin Jr., funeral director of Riverside Funeral Home, said the main chapel and viewing rooms of his business sustained considerable roof damage.

"Shingles blew off with the wind and massive amounts of rain got into the original plaster of the ceiling in the chapel," Noblin said. "There's water damage to other parts of the ceiling as well, but it can't be repaired so we will replace it."

While Riverside Funeral Home is in the flood plain zone, Noblin said this was pretty much the first time they'd experienced anything like this.

"What I want to stress is we're still serving families and this does not hinder anything we do," Noblin said. "It's business as usual."

While the chapel cannot be utilized for services at this time, Noblin said they have been looking at leasing two churches; the First Baptist Church at 115 S. Fourth St. and the First United Methodist Church at 300 N. Third St.

"The structure of the building is fine," Noblin said. "We've put a temporary patch on the roof right now until the renovations start."

Once the renovations are completed, in approximately 60 to 90 days, Noblin said that they will basically have a brand new building.

"The original wooden buttresses and the pews will remain as they are but we will replace the carpeting and have the floors refinished," he said. "We will also repaint the chapel in more modern colors."

Meanwhile, across town on the west mesa, Rick Gonzales has been clearing the mud from in front of his rental storage units.

"The challenge we have is that the holding pond above the units is already full," Gonzales said. "The city hasn't done anything about pumping that water out and I'm just really nervous that it's going to come through again."

Gonzales said the storage units, built by his father-in-law 20 years ago, are sinking and have been for a while. "If you look at the structure, you'll see it's sinking," he said. "They talk about a 100-year flood but this (flooding) happened two years ago too."

The storage units Gonzales owns are located off Camino del Llano and, two weeks ago when the rain came and the pond overflowed, deep ruts were cut in the soil and gravity took its course, sending water gushing onto his property, flooding some storage units.

From the road, the roofing on his storage units, on the west side of his facility, are visibly bowed in the middle.

"I'm between a rock and a hard place," Gonzales said. "Unfortunately, I don't know how to get them to fix it and the pond is at its peak."

Further east down Camino del Llano, the Valencia County News-Bulletin has experienced water and mud build-up in both parking lots from overflowing water from the drainage ditch on the north side of the building.

"Two of our parking lots are virtually impassable," said Dave Puddu, vice president and chief operating officer,. "It's drying out some now, and we've talked with the city about helping us clean it up and they said they would be coming out."

With the storm that hit Belen two weeks ago, once the water came down the culvert on the east side of I-25 and into the drainage ditch, the rushing water drained improperly because of dirt and debris packed in the drainage pipe on the east side of the ditch.

"The water gets diverted south between us and Laurel Meadows Healthcare," Puddu said. "The good news is the building itself is still dry but our shed (in the back parking lot) was flooded."

Puddu added that another area of concern was the massive amounts of mud that have built up because of the diverted water. A sewer cap located on the east side of the property is now buried beneath about three feet of mud and removing the mud without damaging the cap could be tricky.

In addition to the mud and debris, on the southeast side of the parking lot where the excess water drains through a cut in the curbing, the curbing and asphalt in that area have been undercut, creating a weak spot in the parking lot. "The parking lot will sink," Puddu said.

Although the News-Bulletin has a small holding pond on the property, with as much rain that fell, there was no way it could contain that much water in addition to the runoff that was being diverted because of the blocked drainage ditch.

"The larger problem is the holding ponds up on the mesa," Puddu said. "Anytime they're breached, the water comes cascading down to us."

Mayor Ronnie Torres explained at the last city council meeting held on Aug. 7, that the city had been working for years to acquire funding for work on the west mesa. He said the State Highway Department was designing the project now and work could start as early as January.

Torres said the $4 million project would include work from I-25 to the top of the mesa that should take care of the problems in the Camino del Llano area.

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