What a weekend, store flooded, impromptu flood sale, mess
We had a series of events that lead to our store being flooded with around 4 inches of water late evening on Friday. Pretty much everything on display in the sales floor was fine but we had about 300 of our backstock guns that weren't up on shelves, they were mostly the backstock of Savage rifles, our entire optics backstock and many guns on hold or held for raffles/banquets as well as many of our engraved special editions we do here in the store.
Here is the culvert that gave way, the city had some failures that let water accumulate in the field a couple hundred yards behind our building. The culvert normally would let it go out slowly but when she went the whole thing came at once flooding us.
Here are a few pics of the mess and cleanup operation:
We had to take these guns out and clean them, the guns were fine, some were getting a little rust already but cleaned up easily, just a huge number of them to deal with.
After shutting down Saturday to deal with this we were looking at having to deal with all these wet boxes we decided around 6 O'clock on Saturday to announce a 3 hour sale for Sunday to just get rid of all these guns with the soggy boxes. This lead to having a VERY busy Sunday, we were absolutely overwhelmed with people, many driving 3+ hours to get here. I went out to address the crowd 5 minutes before we opened up the warehouse and I believe there was more people there than we even had guns to sell. For the first half hour of the sale I was just grabbing guns in boxes that didn't get wet and throwing them back on the trailers to try and make sure everyone had a chance at some discounted product. We had around 30-40K worth of Vortex optics that had gotten wet that we moved out along with approximatly 150 guns in three hours. It was a zoo and I grabbed three friends of mine that didn't even work here just to try and help. Here is a picture of the people waiting at about 20 minutes before opening.
We held the entire sale in the back warehouse, cash or check only. The front was too big of a mess that we didn't want people up there. It will be a few weeks until things get back to normal around here. We are open for business, just working around all the dehumidifiers and fans, it is mostly dried out but the glue let loose on all the old carpet so now we are looking at replacing that, which will be a huge undertaking but we will get it done. Of course no flood insurance so we are on our own on paying for everything. For the guns we didn't sell we are already in the process of getting new boxes for all the guns from the various manufacturers. Surprisingly we had very little product loss.
0
-
Glad y'all are able to deal with that. When I was one of those annoying folks that did insurance inspections of businesses, THAT is why we used to insist that ANY stock needed to be on dunnage at least 4 inches high. Even a half inch of water from firefighting or a burst pipe can trash everything it wicks into. 0 -
That was horrible. Geez us, you have lots of inventory. Man that has to hurt in the pocket but you guys seem to run a good ship. No need to GB items when you have lines waiting. 0 -
That’s terrible. I’d say you and your folks were working your tails off. 0 -
Dang I was hoping you were going to list some discounted Vortex I am glad you got to sell most and hopefully recover financially. 0 -
Please enlighten us how you managed to run NICS background checks on a Sunday when then national system is closed down...
Mike
0 -
mrmike08075 said:
Please enlighten us how you managed to run NICS background checks on a Sunday when then national system is closed down...
Mike
The Federal Nics system is most certainly NOT closed on Sundays.
Here is straight from their website:NICS Availability
The NICS is customarily available by phone 17 hours a day, seven days a week, including holidays (except for Christmas). Calls may be monitored and recorded for any authorized purpose. The NICS E-Check is available 24/7.
Follow this link if you want more info:
0 -
If you have any wet box products left, especially optics, please let us know the GB auction side listing numbers! 0 -
the floor is not your friend 0 -
"Here is the culvert that gave way, the city had some failures that let water accumulate in the field a couple hundred yards behind our building. The culvert normally would let it go out slowly but when she went the whole thing came at once flooding us."
You need flood insurance, when the city has an "issue" with its flood control infrastructure (that normally works)?0 -
Good gawd, that is an epic mess, good luck on the cleanup. 0 -
Looks like you are taking care of this. Insurance??We used to get this 1-2 times a year, 1-2 inches. Have back filled around the shop, fixed drainage . Nothing in the last two years. Yes, every thing is 4 inches off the ground and cheap carpet.0 -
That's a lesson for me.
The 20 years I worked in a gun shop we were only closed on Sunday's because NICS was not available on Sunday's in NJ - which I assumed was a national issue or schedule.
I stand corrected - my apologies.
Mike
0 -
We've been at this location since the early 90's. First time we had water. No flood insurance. Im sure it was discussed as we had to switch insurance companies 3 years ago, we have two industries operating as one business that are hard to find insurance on, especially to find 1 company that will insure both.
0 -
Our main safe is under part of the members restaurant / lounge upstairs. First time the kitchen was pressure washed it rained bleach solution into the safe. Luckily everything that got rained on was in sealed VCI bags 0 -
Don't let Ricci know about your new way to apply water based brown surface protectant. Or whatever he calls it. 3
Please sign in to leave a comment.
Comments
15 comments