Co –owner of South Brisbane Worldwide Online Printing centre, Natasha Anich, is devastated by the impact of the flood on her business and community but buoyed by the tremendous community spirit that is helping her to get her business back up and running.
Almost 100 people, including suppliers, customers, staff, other Worldwide Online Printing centre colleagues, friends and complete strangers, helped her and co-owners, husband Paul, brother-in-law George, and Andrew Cochrane as well as their tenant Mike Dennett of Mail IT, to prepare for the floods and then undertake the massive clean-up.
When Ms Anich was allowed back into the Cordelia Street centre on Friday she discovered that the water had been almost half a metre high. After putting out a call for help via Facebook and to a church group in nearby Mt Gravatt, more than 60 people arrived to help staff clean up the mud and debris. Two interstate tourists who had lost power where they were staying also walked by and stayed for the entire day to clean up.
Ms Anich was thankful they had been able to move their large and expensive printing equipment and computers out of the centre before the floods. She said that had the technicians from Konica Minolta and OCE not responded within hours and worked frantically to relocate machinery, the impact on her business would have been diabolical.
The water damage would have been worse had it not been for the help of total strangers.
"After purchasing sandbags that arrived on Wednesday (January 12) afternoon, staff at the centre were helped by some people who were in nearby Musgrave Park," Ms Anich said.
"The water was almost at the door but these three men, that we didn't know, stayed and helped us lift all the sand-bags into place," she said.
"They wouldn't accept payment or thanks, saying it was a "gift from the heart"."
Technology helped rally the community again on Sunday when the decision was made to rip out the ruined walls and clear mud lodged in cavities. Twitter, Facebook and calls to friends produced another 20 helpers. Ms Anich said one customer Bron Browning and her husband Ken spent three days helping to clean up. An email update to customers on Monday produced more offers of help.
Co-owner George Bacic counts himself lucky as the business can be rebuilt.
Despite not having power, machinery or furniture, the centre is open for business with printing being carried out from Worldwide's Springwood Centre. Mr Bacic expects the South Brisbane centre to be fully operational within two weeks.
"We did not want our clients to be affected by this disaster," Mr Bacic said.
"There are a lot of people out there who have lost lives and many businesses have been worse affected than us," he said.
The three owners said that they can't thank enough the people who so freely gave their time and energy.
"The help people gave us is so very much appreciated and we just want to thank them from the bottom of our hearts," Ms Anich said.
Source: whereilive
0 comments:
Post a Comment