Stores cop a drenching

By Sarah Schwager
HEAVY rains caused havoc in Pakenham businesses last week.
Shop owners turned up to work last week after a weekend of torrential rain to find leaking roofs and flooded carpet.
The worst affected business was school clothing shop Beleza School Uniforms on John Street.
The shop’s manager Bev Goeree said she turned up on Monday, the day before school went back and their busiest day of the year, to find the carpet flooded.
“Apparently the storm was on the Saturday night and the roof was leaking all weekend,” Ms Goeree said.
“When we came in on Monday it was still dripping.”
She said plumbers had determined a fault in the ceiling was the most likely cause, with water being collected between the outer roof and ceiling.
“The plumber has been working on it since,” she said.
Ms Goeree said luckily no clothes had been damaged as they were all off the floor but the flooding has still been a concern on their busiest day. The carpet has since been dried, shampooed and deodorised.
Ms Goeree said it was not the first problem they had had with the rain, though certainly the worst.
“Every time it rains it comes back,” she said. “We have to keep stuff well away from the leak.”
She said they would now have to wait and see what happened the next time it rained.
Next door business R J Tyrrell and Co was also affected by the heavy rains.
They had a leak out the back of the business though staff assured nothing had been damaged and the problem was being fixed.
In the Pakenham Place Shopping Centre, Target said they had also been affected during heavy rains on the previous Friday.
A Target spokeswoman said they had a small amount of water drip into the store due to a leaky roof.
But she said the water had not caused any damage and they had fixed the problem.
The Westpac Bank on Main Street has also had its share of flooding.
Visitors to the bank have been confronted with a large closed off section of stripped flooring and musty smell.
But a Westpac spokeswoman assured the wet floor was not a result of leaking from the heavy rains.
She said a water pipe had burst in the wall of the neighbouring business, Gerard Collins Real Estate.
She said it had been a problem at the bank for the last month.