Manchester's Millyards Clean Up After Floods

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• Full Coverage: Flooding in New Hampshire

(begin with sound of huge de-humidifiers)

Track 1: The sound of relentless rain has now been replaced with the endless drone of massive de-humidifiers.

They’re sucking what moisture they can from flooded out basement businesses in the millyard. (maybe bring sound up again here for a second)

This office space was bustling with activity a week ago – before 4-8 feet of water flooded in from the rising Merrimack:

(sound up of Merrimack River, still flowing very loudly, followed by cut of Arthur Sullivan)

“We have completely removed everything from the lower level, including carpets and the dry wall four feet up, so it’s all gutted at this point.”

Track 2: Arthur Sullivan of Brady-Sullivan Properties, owns two of the largest buildings in the millyard – the Jefferson and Waumbec Mills.

He says the water flooded a total of 70,000 square feet in both basements.

But he still manages to be optimistic.

“…. we’re doing dehumidification process…but we’re going to start hanging sheet rock again…and hope within a couple of weeks – two to three weeks – to have it completely restored.”

Track 3: When you enter the basement of Jefferson Mill, sights and smells of already festering mold & mildew assault your senses.

Battered sheet rock, shredded fiberglass, and all sorts of other debris is strewn about.

Four feet above the floor, large water marks boldly betray the river’s unwelcomed visit.

Sullivan says water can cause so much more damage than at first glance.

“Getting the wet, soggy carpet out of there was an incredible task in that size space…but anything that’s wet, fabric, that can hold water, needs to be removed as soon as possible. But that’s what we were able to accomplish working round the clock here.”

(fade in workmen nat sound)

Workman: “What I’m doing is I’m having them take all the sheet rock, the carpet, and having them put it on top of the first fifty…the other fifty, filled with all furniture”
(fade out noise under next track)

Track 4: Work men and women have been at this clean-up effort 24/7.

They’re loading the remnants of offices into huge 30 and 50 yard dumpsters many times over.

Maintenance Manager Luke Akins – documenting the operation with a camera – says nothing was salvageable.

“All our rugs…cabinets…rugs…walls…chairs…desks…everything.” :07

Track 5: The scenario was very similar at the southern end of the millyard – near Granite Street.

Jillians’ Billiards Club was reportedly hit the hardest.

Sam Holdridge’s restoration company, Service Master, was hired for the clean-up.

He recalls his first impression of the damage.

“I was in fishing waders…went into the basement, and the water was about four feet deep…kegs floating around, contents floating around. No power, there’s still no power.”

Track 6: And Holdridge says the power won’t be back until Wednesday – at which point the owners plan to re-open the pool hall.

But he says things are looking infinitely better:

“We’ve had to demolish and extract every bit of contents…everything you can think of…from the basement…the upper levels are fine. That’s really good for them, but our biggest concern for them is to try to help them out the best way we can to get them back in business as quickly as we can.” :16

Track 7: And that’s still going to take weeks of work, says Holdridge:

“These are old mills, so you have old mill-type basements. And the back half of the basements are dirt floors. So it’s going to be a huge effort to get that taken care of.”

Track 8: Both Holdridge and Arthur Sullivan However, have seen one bright side to all of this.

“Actually we’re very amazed at the cooperation, and the police dept. did a wonderful job of monitoring the premises, the entire millyard, if nothing else…we had a lot of sight-seers down here, caused all sorts of havoc on that front. We also had the National Guard making sure the properties were protected and lives were kept at bay. And also the Fire Department was a tremendous help through the process and helping us pump out the buildings.”

Track 9: Much more still needs to be done in the coming weeks before things will be completely back to pre flood days.

But there *is* a silver lining; and that is, most weather forecasts are predicting SUNSHINE for the next several days.

If nothing else, that should go a long way toward making the remaining clean-up operations a bit more pleasant.

For NHPR News, I’m DD, in Manchester