The company had just completed restoring its showroom from the devastating effects of 2017’s Hurricane Harvey when floods came again, this time from Imelda, a tropical depression that the National Weather Service is calling the seventh-wettest tropical cyclone in U.S. history.
"It just started raining and raining,” Schenk said. “It caught all the meteorologists and everybody by surprise."
The rain near Schenck began at around noon Sept. 19 and concluded by 5 p.m. What it lacked in duration it more than made up for in intensity, drenching areas of southeast Texas with as much as 43 inches of water, according to The New York Times.
"Within 30 minutes [the water] had risen a couple feet and it was lapping at our doors,” says Schenck.
Having been through floods before, the Schenck and Company team snapped into action and began picking up machines and samples from the floor.
"Everybody rolled up their sleeves and pitched in and did what they had to do,” Schenck says.
Unfortunately, several expensive flooring projects that were on the floor waiting to be shipped were ruined in the fast-rising flood, which filled the company’s offices with 3 inches of water in some areas and as much as 1 ½ feet of water in others.
"The good news is we didn't lose power like we did during Harvey,” says Schenck. “So as soon as the water subsided we were able to start cleaning up."
After the company posted about its flooding on social media, it received a familiar question about its mesquite showroom floor. “In the comments, that's the first thing people ask for: Did the mesquite floor make it through this one?” Schenck says, noting that the mesquite flooring will indeed survive its fifth flooding. “If we're known for anything, people remember that mesquite floor,” Schenck says.
The effects of Imelda don’t appear to be quite as widespread as Harvey, and Schenck says the phone did not immediately ring off the hook with clients calling for flooring repairs the next day. But the calls did come.
"We're busy working on a lot of estimates for water-damaged homes,” Schenck says.
It’s becoming a familiar process for the area—and a frustrating one, Schenck adds: “Houston-wide, there are still people that are still not back in their homes from Harvey."
Read Schenck’s column about the methods he uses to restore wood flooring after a flood, written in the wake of Hurricane Harvey.
