For a flower shop, Valentine’s Day is one of the most important holidays of the year. Flowers are bought by the truckl0ad, along with teddy bears and other adorable trinkets to woo loved ones.@@this made be giggly@@
So, when a truck came barreling through the four front windows of Eugene’s Flower Home@@http://www.eugenesflowerhome.com/aboutus.html@@ at the corner of East 13th Avenue and Patterson Street on Jan. 24 — just three short weeks before the big day — the outlook for recovery was grim.
With windows completely destroyed, structural damage to the front and flooring as well as thousands of dollars in merchandise turned into a pile of debris in the showroom, the store owners had their jobs cut out for them.
“It made life difficult, of course,” said Pat Brooks,@@http://kezi.com/page/237276@@ one of the co-owners of the store. “It was a very sad thing to have happen — and a very expensive thing.”
Last Thursday, P.J. Martinez, who is one of the crew members sent by McKenzie/Taylor Construction@@http://www.mckenzietayloreugene.com/@@ to help with the restoration, was repainting the store name and the three-day-old window frames.
“It’ll be about three weeks to a month to recover,” Martinez said. “We took two weeks to do this.”
Prior to the windows, the store looked more like a rickety, boarded-up lot.
“We’re surprised they were able to get the windows in already,” Brooks said. “There were drapes put up, and it was just plywood for a while … It was a little dark, but we functioned.”
The reconstruction has had to take place during the evenings so that the store could stay in operation during the day.
“We’ve been working until 11 p.m., 12 a.m.,” Martinez said. “As it’s gotten closer,@@to what? v day?@@ I’ve been starting around noon or so because you can do stuff that doesn’t make a lot of noise.”
Martinez hasn’t been the only one working until the late hours of the evening. The employees of the flower shop had to work overtime to help clean up and create an approachable environment.
Laurie Brooks-Headley,@@http://www.registerguard.com/web/updates/27510317-55/police-flower-shop-blanton-pickup.html.csp@@ Pat’s daughter and co-owner of the shop, was impressed with how people came together to help keep the shop on its feet.@@a-duh, they had to…slavedrivers!@@
“Really, we were just in disbelief at first,” Brooks-Deadley said. “Obviously we’ve been through things before, so we just come together and figure it out.”
One of the biggest jobs was putting together the displays of flowers and gifts that were destroyed in the accident. They are still getting in merchandise to replace everything they lost.
“We were able to get flowers that same day because there was a lot destroyed, and the glass spoiled a lot of things,”@@?@@ Brooks said. “We haven’t replaced all our merchandise. Like, our nice cards and vases are still coming in, so it’ll be a while.”
They’ve gotten enough that they feel much more comfortable that they get through Valentine’s Day. However, with a floor that needs to be replaced, getting through the holiday is all that is on their plate because they’ll need to close down to finish restorations.
For now, they’re doing OK, and they’re content with how they’re managing.@@yay!@@ Partially due to the media attention of the crash, people knew what happened and also knew that the shop would remain open through construction.
“We were able to cope,” Brooks said. “We have a marvelous staff, and they just kept on going, and they worked a lot of overtime to catch up.”@@slavedrivers!@@