Flooded Waynesville Plaza businesses continue their recovery and seek financial assistance

WAYNESVILLE, N.C. (WLOS) — Hurricane Helene flooded Richland Creek in Waynesville, sending water into the Waynesville Plaza shopping center, damaging several businesses.

Rehabilitation of the square continues as they look for financial assistance.

The businesses at one end of Waynesville Plaza were hit the hardest.

At All About Fitness, manager Mike Simonson says Helene filled the building with two inches of water and mud.

“It came and went all the way to the back door,” Simonson said. “We had mud everywhere. (The) tiles on the floor were so bad they started to warp.”

The muddy, wet mess caused the lights to go out and more.

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“A lot of equipment was connected and short-circuited. So we lost two treadmills, an elliptical, and a stair climber. (It) looked good, we cooked pretty well,” Simonson said.

Without flood insurance and a high price tag for a professional cleaning service, All About Fitness relied on itself and a dozen of its own gym members.

“We came here, bought some hair dryers – industrial hair dryers – and we worked on them for three days,” he said. We came in, we mopped, we cleaned. We took out all the floors.”

He says the gym passed the provincial inspection for mold and mildew and was able to reopen after six days. But a 24-hour gym being closed for six days meant several members left.

Simonson said it was initially about 125 members. He says that’s 40% of the gym’s customers, but some are just coming back and new members are joining.

The message now is that they are open for business.

“We want to get the word out,” Simonson said.

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The goal is to recover lost revenue as quickly as possible.

“We were hoping to get help from FEMA. We haven’t heard from them yet. The landlord, we haven’t heard yet what they’re going to do,” Simonson said.

The gym also launched a GoFundMe page to help.

The nearby Smoky Mountain Cinema was also damaged.

“Servpro came in and we mucked it up. It cost quite a bit. It’s about $20,000,” owner Greg Israel said.

He says they were able to reopen in about two weeks. Israel says structural damage was minimal. But he says he lost $100,000 worth of equipment in the floods and is also looking for financial help.

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“My understanding is that there will be a number of grants coming from a number of sources that hopefully we can qualify for one of those grants,” Israel said.

Back at the gym, Simonson knows that branches in the mall are dealing with different types of damage.

“We have several businesses in this mall that were probably worse off than us,” he said.

Business owners on the Square say what they need most now to recoup their initial costs is cash.