For a lot of people, it was worse than they imagined and much worse than the 2016 damage. Today, business owners got the first glimpse of their shops after devastating flooding Sunday. Some returned to find the first floor completely gutted. Some are already determined to rebuild and for others, who went through this just two years ago, it's the end. One longtime owner is just feeling lucky to be alive.
"The floor buckled and the showcases came tumbling down and I’m screaming, 'Gary, I don’t want to drown in here!'" antique store owner Joan Eve Shea-Cohen said.
She and her friend Gary Weltner were in her store on lower Main St. when the flooding hit.
"I realized as I saw the water rising very rapidly we had to get out," Weltner said. "I broke the glass on the door and pulled the two of us through the glass and I said to Joan Eve, 'Please be certain to hold on as tight as you can and don’t let go.'"
A whirlwind two days later, they were able to return to what was left of her new space.
"It’s a total loss again. Even the few things that we salvaged are severely damaged," Weltner said.
Her store was just a year old. She fought to reopen Joan Eve Classics and Collectibles at a different location after the 2016 flood.
"One year later, July 8th, we had a ribbon cutting and it was so exciting," Shea-Cohen said.
Now, she is reliving that nightmare, having to look through much to find her antiques and momentos. One thing she was able to save: a painting given to her by another Main St business owner, of the first shop she owned that was destroyed in 2016. A reminder of what she has already been through once. At just shy of 75 years old, she says this time is different.
"I don’t want to go through it again with even a thought that this is going to happen again. I don’t know that they are going to do. I don’t know what Ellicott City is going to do," Shea-Cohen said.
