Napa businesses cope with flood clean up

By JENNIFER HUFFMAN, Register Staff Writer

Napa businesses continue to muck out the mud and gunk the city's New Year's Eve flood deposited with vehemence throughout parts of the city. Saturday's floodwaters wreaked havoc on local businesses, leaving a sticky layer of chocolate brown mud deposited on the floors, walls and corners of offices and workplaces.

And the numbers are starting to add up. From the largest corporations to the smallest mom and pop shops, more than 270 businesses have been recorded as having either minor or major damage. Preliminary estimates by Napa County Assessor John Tuteur put the impact on county businesses at $27 million.

Cinedome

Anyone watching CNN on Saturday saw the same images as the rest of the country. A river literally ran past, and through, Napa's only movie theater. Early in the week, rumors began. Will the Cinedome survive?

On a recent afternoon at the theater, industrial fans blew and construction work lights shone through the darkened and decidedly damp smelling hallways. The inside of the cinemas looked deserted, the sound of generators replacing the movie soundtracks and chatter usually filling the building.

Outside in the parking lot, soggy carpeting and other flood detritus was piled into Dumpsters. Some doors were still barricaded by sandbags and wooden flood barriers. Others were flung wide open in what appeared to be an effort to dry out the auditoriums. Under the marquee listing "King Kong," "The Producers" and other Hollywood titles, ticket windows are inaccessible. The grass below was flattened and distressed from the rushing waters.

Huddling with a group of workers on Wednesday, Century Theater vice president Hal Sawyer had the look of a man with a big cleanup on his hands. "We will re-open," said Sawyer. "We're not doing all this work not to re-open."

Century Theater corporate offices in San Rafael would not give a re-opening date, nor how many auditoriums will open, and on damages or even the extent of flooding they were silent.

David Shesgreen, Century Theaters President and CEO, said, "We will re-open as quickly as we can."

Action Avenue

Napa's Action Avenue certainly saw plenty of action during the deluge.

Chris Fultz runs Fultz Construction at the north end of the Action Avenue. On tables inside his office, employees had carefully spread out waterlogged invoices and receipts in attempt to preserve the papers.

Fultz said he was inundated with 14 to 16 inches of water inside his ground floor office and warehouse space.

"We lost our computers and everything in our lower file cabinets," said Fultz. The business owner estimated $35,000 worth of equipment, repair parts, and other inventory was destroyed. He does not have flood insurance.

Is he thinking about getting the insurance? Fultz replied, "I'm thinking about moving," adding "nobody got hurt, that's all that matters."

Location really did seem to matter in this flood. Next door, but up an ever-so-slight incline was American Window Systems, Inc.

Business and property owners Tom and Roberta Javorina's carpeted showroom and offices were dry.

"Water came up to the door," said Tom Javorina. "Just another inch and it would have come in," he said. "We're feeling very relieved," added Roberta Javorina.

The Javorina's said they worked until late Friday night sandbagging their offices and warehouse doors.

Mike Bruno, who owns Action Avenue's Ace Automotive and Truck Repair, said "We fared pretty good."

Bruno said he was prepared for the water. "Friday night we started picking up stuff off the floors." He and a group stay most of the night on the shop's second floor. Bruno said about 8 inches of water entered his garage shop. He estimates about $10,000 in damage.

Even as Bruno was cleaning up his own business, new work was coming his way as flood damaged vehicles began to arrive. The mechanic said most of the cars he's seen so far suffer from "shorted out" and "fried" electrical and computer systems.

Bruno estimates such repairs running between $400 to $2,000, depending on the extent of water damage. "Some will be totaled," he said.

But even with water woes, Bruno said he's not scared of flooding. "I'm third generation in this town. I know what to expect. We just hose out and move on.

"We're lucky compared to a lot of people," he added. "There are a lot of people without houses and all their worldly possessions are gone," he said, gesturing over the neighborhood.

Bruno took a pragmatic approach to the situation. "Our New Year's resolution was to clean up the shop anyway," he said. The businessman does plan one change in 2006. "We're not putting carpet down."

Vallejo Street

Kristen Spelletich of Spelletich Cellars helps run her family's winery production facility in downtown Napa.

The Spelletich's carefully sandbagged both outside the building and the interior trench drain -- that didn't keep the water out.

"Every year we do have some kind of flooding, but no one was prepared for this," said Spelletich.

Entering their business after the flood, the family was greeted by the sight of wine barrels floating in the parking lot. The facility, located on Vallejo Street, was engulfed by 3 feet of water.

To a visitor, the Spelletich warehouse smelled like a normal winery barrel room.

But winemaker Barbara Spelletich knew better. To her sensitive nose, the odor betrayed the water invasion. An intense cleaning was underway.

Carefully handling the wine to preserve the labels, bottles needed to be cleaned twice to fully remove the silt left behind. Using spray bottles full of vodka, the team wiped down each and every bottle with the natural sterilizer.

Kristen Spelletich said that they'd have to remove the capsules and sterilize the corks by hand.

"To keep the integrity of the wine we have to make cleanup our first priority," said Kristen Spelletich. "It's a tedious cleanup. Everything is pretty caked," she said. The "flood" wine will be sold at a discount.

Spelletich said they did not lose any wine, but an outdoor cooling system, valued at $28,000, was destroyed. It will be covered by insurance, she said.

She estimates total damages at between $50,000 to $70,000 in lost production time, cleanup efforts and equipment. "Thank goodness we weren't hit as hard as other people were," she said. "What it comes down to was everyone was safe. We just need to pick up the pieces."

Silverado Trail

The four-legged friends at Silverado Trail's Camp Rawhide may have gotten a little wet, but owner Patryce Mendoza made sure all her guests were safely moved to the second story of her kennel as water rose 18 inches into the ground floor of her business.

Mendoza was thankful for her family and employee's help with the evacuation, which came during her busiest time of the year.

"My team rocks. With everything that was going on, we had those dogs upstairs, bathed, fed and watered," said Mendoza.

Next were the calls to dog owners.

"Thank God my husband had the presence of mind to grab my PC off the floor. We grabbed our boarding list, set up my computer and started calling everyone to let them know the dogs were safe and dry. I wanted to call customers before they saw the news. They were very happy to hear from me," said Mendoza.

She estimated her loss to be about $5,000 -- close to a month's income for her. She has no flood insurance.

"I don't know if flood insurance would do me any good because I don't own the property," Mendoza said, but she said she planned to look into it. "This was not supposed to happen," she said.

Chris Burns of the Vallerga's Market business office said the grocery chain's Silverado Trail store had been swamped with 3 feet of water.

According to Burns, all product in the freezer aisle, deli section and bottom two to three shelves throughout the store were destroyed. "We don't know the total loss is at this point," said Burns.

"Since we have been declared a disaster area we are gathering estimates of damage to provide to the chamber of commerce."

Vallerga's re-opened on Tuesday.

"We had wonderful employees and volunteers working around the clock to reopen. Anyone who could come to work came; people came on their days off." Burns said no layoffs are planned due to the flood and the store's future would not be impacted by the flood.

"There are no plans to close the Silverado Trail Store," said Burns.

St. Helena

Napa Valley Ornamental Nursery in St. Helena may not be on the beaten path, but the specialized seed nursery has taken a major hit in the disaster.

Owner Sue Tiedemann said the business was overrun by 2 1/2 to 3 feet of water covering all in its path. "The only spot that didn't flood was the business parking lot," said Tiedemann.

Located on Fulton Lane on the town's northeast side, the nursery finds itself in somewhat of a Catch-22.

"When they put the flood wall into Vineyard Valley mobile park, a half-mile south of us, it created a dam, which created a new flood plain, right on our property," she said. But according to Tiedemann, FEMA maps do not place them on a flood plain, making insurance and assistance more difficult to come by.

On Thursday, Tiedemann estimated more than a $100,000 loss in nursery stock. "It took us eight years to get to this point, and now we're starting all over again. If we can survive."

Tiedemann said she had flood insurance for her home on the property but it does not cover anything outside the dwelling. "We're hoping for federal or state or whatever kind of assistance is out there," she said.

This isn't the Tiedemann's first flood. Three times in 1995, they faced flooding. "We spent that entire year cleaning up the mess," she said. "(The 1995 flood) was higher water, but we have more to lose financially this time."

To make recovery even harder, Tiedemann estimated it will take three to five years to re-grow her more than 1,000 varieties of plants from around the world. Facing her future she said, "We're just trying to see how we can survive and get by. I'm just treading water, " she said.

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