WILKES-BARRE, Pa. — "Before, you know, in a matter of 20 minutes, there's water in there. I mean, it just happened so fast, so fast," said Frank Schiel Jr. when asked about the flash flooding in his family's grocery store.
He says it only took a matter of minutes for Schiel's to fill up with water last Thursday after a heavy downpour in Wilkes-Barre.
Schiel says the parking lot along Hanover Street is designed to sustain heavy rain, but this was too much to handle.
"It just rained too much, too fast, and just our drains couldn't handle that water, and it just built up so fast, our loading dock filled up almost halfway through the garage door, and then it was about eight inches above our front door," said Schiel.
Forcing the market to close over a busy holiday weekend.
"Very disappointed," said customer Albert Mrackoski of Wilkes-Barre Township when asked about the flooding. "You know what I mean, lots of business, all the damage that was done, all right, but look what they did. A beautiful job getting it back together."
Almost as fast as the water filled the store, owners say employees showed up to help.
"Everyone just showed up. I mean, people would even call so like, that's loyalty to our good employees we have, and we're very thankful for them for all the hard work they did. And I mean, we were in here with snow shovels moving water out. I mean, we did anything we can just to get the water out as fast as we can," said Schiel.
It was not only cleanup that was a team effort from employees here at the market. Restocking all the shelves was too. Everything from baked goods and bread to precooked meals had to be made overnight to restock the shelves in time to reopen.
"So all of our perishable departments were replaced. So I mean, there's a lot of work to the bakery, the deli, the produce, the meat. I mean, a lot of hours when it's again this place back open," added Schiel.
Customers are thankful to see the grocery store open again so quickly, some telling Newswatch 16 they depend on small, neighborhood businesses like this one.
"Very important. Very, very important for the small people like me. Okay, you need them, you need a family friend market. That's why I look at it," explained Mrackoski.
The owners say they have a few cosmetic damages to repair after the storm, but it's back to business as usual here in South Wilkes-Barre.