NEW KENT COUNTY, Va. (WAVY) — A New Kent County business is cleaning up after Hurricane Isaias flooded its facility earlier this week.
The Virginia Elite Gymnastics Academy should be getting ready to celebrate its 10 year anniversary. Instead, staff and volunteers have spent the week drying out equipment and salvaging what they can.
“Mostly it was our landing mats for beams and bars. The whole lobby is unusable for weeks. It’s probably going to be rough in there,” said Bethany Allgood, who works as a gymnastics coach.
Owner Carissa Baldwin says if they can’t salvage the mats, it could cost more than $20,000 to replace them. It’s another financial burden for the business, which is already reeling from COVID-19.
“We’ve used all of our reserves with the pandemic, so with this coming along was devastating and knowing we would have to close and the kids would have to be without the gym for another two weeks, at least, it makes it sad for them. Because they were just coming back to get their skills in and we don’t want to have any delay in their training,” she said.
Baldwin says she noticed the flooding from the outside of the building when she arrived on Tuesday. Once she entered the facility, she says water was sloshing at her feet and covered the entire floor, including all the foam mats they use for practice.
On Thursday, staff and volunteers worked to clean mat covers while the mattresses were still drying inside the building.
Baldwin says this couldn’t come at a worse time. The business, which served around 400 kids weekly before COVID-19 hit the region, was preparing to move to a bigger facility in a couple of weeks.
“It’s tough when you’re so close to have to also deal with this,” she said.
Because of the flooding, they’ve also had to cancel camps, which she says many in the community use for childcare.
Attendance has also dropped to about 30 percent of the number of gymnasts they originally had pre-pandemic, but Baldwin says they were taking steps in the old facility to make sure everyone stayed safe.
But, they weren’t expecting to close their doors for 12 weeks because of restrictions.
“It’s been challenging. We tried to go above and beyond what we could do to make sure the facility was clean and safe even before the mandates came out but in the end, the call was made to shut down so we had to do that,” she said. “We weren’t expecting it to be as long so it’s been difficult to navigate and slowly reopen without government assistance. So, expenses are the same.”
Baldwin says they hope to move into their new facility quickly, which will come with safety accommodations such as advanced air filtration system that incorporates a bi-polar ionization, touchless sinks, and an airbag foam pit, which is more hygienic and washable. She says they’ll be the only gym in the state with such a pit.
But they’re hoping to recooperate not only losses from the weeks they were closed, but also from cleaning fees due to the flooding as well as losses from camp cancellation.
Allgood says parents started a GoFundMe to help and are grateful for those who have donated.
“I know it’s hard times for a lot of people but we’re rallying and we’re hoping the community is behind us. This would not be a business without the community,” she said.
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