More than 30 stores and restaurants from Rio Nido to Guernewood Park were inundated. The flooding Russian River crested above forty-five ft remaining Wednesday, more than 13 feet above flood level. “The 2019 flood has taken us below,” said a put-up from the Rio Nido Roadhouse, wherein the river nearly rose to the roofline. Small mountains of flood debris lined River Road along the Rio Nido strip west of Guerneville this week, in which almost two dozen stores have been close or damaged. One of the worst casualties became Stumptown Nursery, in which owner Dorothy Hagan said she’s been via river floods before and vowed that her business would survive. “This is my fifth time,” said Hagan, surveying the flood wreckage closing week that covered her homes, knocked off foundations, and muddy nursery pots scattered throughout her parking lot. She’s digging out this week, and no matter the daunting destruction, she hopes to be back in business in April, serving spring-stimulated customers. However, she delivered that it would take much longer before she returned to something equivalent to normality.
“It will take me two years to recover,” stated Hagan, who doesn’t carry flood coverage. “It’s no longer even within the realm of opportunity” to chavea federal flood coverage, thanks to the prohibitive value in her location, wherein a premium might run in the six figures, stated Hagan. But she’s banking on her customer base to return because it has for 30 years and four past floods. She owns her property, carries no mortgage, and says, “I don’t owe anybody anything.” Hagan’s clear-up is supported by 30 years of experience at the river. “I opened here in 1989,” said Hagan, a veteran of prior flood screw-ups which have tempered her clear up, coupled with a spirit of resilient perseverance. Running a nursery in Guerneville “It’s a seasonal market,” said Hagan. “People don’t want lawn here all 12 months long.”
So comes spring, she’ll be prepared, stated Hagan. “I simply hope they preserve to assist me.” Down the road from Hagan’s, Dada True Value Hardware, Guerneville’s only hardware keep, took 5 ft of water on its ground but miraculously remained open for enterprise this week as the cleanup continues. Elsewhere a large flood mop-up became glaring as hundreds of citizens and traders handled the aftermath of the Russian River’s most intense flooding considering 1995. Flooded enterprise along River Road protected the Rio Nido Lodge, Rio Nido Roadhouse, the Riverside Wellness hashish dispensary, the Farmhand Deli, Guerneville car wash, Stumptown Brewery, River Plumbing, Barkers Pet Supplies, Fife Creek Antiques, MD Gas & Food, Country Tire, Dada True Value Hardware, MD Auto Shop, Bonnie Sew Good, M-four Specialties out of doors fixtures, Matlock Roofing, Zeigler Mechanical sheet metallic, Bushgen Drilling and Backhoe, Sonoma Landworks, the Guerneville Lodge and the Never Ends beauty salon.
River Theater proprietor Jerry Knight’s garage backyard went beneath, as did the lower aspect of his ancient River Theater. Guerneville’s vital business block of Main Street looked unscathed; however, the decrease-mendacity north side of city homes, as anticipated, saw major flooding, with the 3R resort, Timberline Restaurant (previously Buck’s Ranch), the Woods Resort, D & G Properties, Russian River Getaways, Mill Street Thrift Shop and the Guerneville Post Office affected by flooding. On Mill Street, the Guerneville Post Office remained closed this week,k with its front door bolstered using a metallic dam. A signal in the window tells P.O. Container holders to get their mail at the Occidental Post Office. No Guerneville reopening has been announced.
Across the street, longtime Guerneville resident and landlord Wendell Joost evacuated his conventional vintage automobile series before the flood. They had his automobiles parked lower back interior and dry on Saturday. “Yeah, he was given ’em out,” said a colleague helping out. “It’s now not his first rodeo.” Floodwater inundated the West Sonoma Style Bar, Higher Grounds Organic Espresso, and Jim Long’s Power Products on Third Street. West on Main, flooding affected M.D. Gas, Guerneville Graphics print save, Gypsy Sister boutique, Flavors ice cream parlor, Dawn Ranch Lodge, La Taqueria Tapatia Mexican restaurant, the Surrey Gym, Evergreen Flooring, and Wishes & Secrets hair salon. At the AutoCamp motel on Old Cazadero Road, the lodge’s remaining Airstream trailers had floodwater strains about midway up the brilliant metallic units. The two-acre inn on Hulbert Creek also seemed to have lost some campsites due to financial institution erosion alongside Hulbert Creek.
