CBD business owners reveal the financial fallout of 2022 floods

The Gympie CBD is still a “long way from normality”, with many stores still closed, a shortage of tradesmen to repair the damage, and an arduous insurance process hampering the recovery.

Scott Kovacevic

3 min read

July 23, 2022 - 9:08AM

Gympie

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More than a dozen Gympie city businesses remain shut more than four months after the second-worst flood in the region’s recorded history left the CBD looking like a war zone.

The ongoing closures in the wake of the February 2022 disaster in which the Mary River rose to 22.96m has hollowed out the heart of the city, with businesses in Mary St and between CBD and the river still trying to get back on their feet.

Even those planning to return to their original home, like Pedal Power Plus owner Dave Phillips, say the challenges are long from over.

“You’ll never catch up,” Mr Phillips said.

“This is five floods for me and one fire, you never get caught up.”

He has since opened a temporary store for his bike servicing business about 50m up the road, in the James Nash Arcade, while he awaits repairs on his own shop.

Dave Phillips has been running his Pedal Power Plus bike servicing business out of a temporary shop 50m from its regular home, which is still being repaired.

That shop was still undergoing repairs.

Mr Phillips said he would return to it “hopefully within a month”.

He had insurance “but it’s a process and you have to go through it”.

But he never considered calling it a day.

“What happens then?” Mr Phillips said.

“What do your customers do?

“Go somewhere else and get sh-tty service?”

More than a half dozen shops have shut for good in the wake of the February 2022 floods in Gympie.

Gympie Bearing Supplies owners Gordon and Marlene Owen, whose business is only 50m from the banks of the Mary River, said it would be a “12 month recovery”.

“You can’t put a figure on it,” Mr Owen said of the economic damage wrought by the disaster, which destroyed his shop’s entire stock.

Mr Owen said the weather bureau had been late with its information and and advice, but at the end of the day it was hampered by the fact the flood was unprecedented and the authorities had no point of comparison with past events.

“No-one expected what happened,” Mrs Owen said.

“We never thought we’d get another 10 inches (of rain) overnight.”

The economic support in the wake of the disaster had not come remotely close to covering the damage, either.

Mr Owen said he had qualified for some financial support applied for other help, but so far that had fallen far short of the damage inflicted.

He understood why Mary St was often the focal point of flood coverage and the recovery, but unfortunately this meant other businesses in the region ravaged by the flood were “all forgotten”.

Businesses between the Mary River and Mary St are still waiting to reopen, forced to rely on insurance and repair services in hot demand across Queensland and New South Wales as a result of the widespread flooding at the start of 2022.

PC Place owner Nick Green said even with the waters gone businesses were faced with the struggle to get insurance companies and tradies in to inspect the damaged shops as those services were also needed in other, more heavily populated parts of the state.

“(The floods were) not just localised to us... so trying to organise that has been a bit of a challenge for people,” Mr Green said.

Mary St itself still went “quiet” from time to time.

“I think some people still think it’s a bit of a work site,” Mr Green said.

There were positive signs, too.

“You can start to see the flow come back to the street, which is nice to see.”

PC Place owner Nick Green said the city was on the right trajectory back from the floods, but there was still a way to go.

He counted himself lucky as they were able to move most of their things out of the shop before it was inundated.

The loss of business was another thing altogether.

“It’s not just the downtime from you being closed,” Mr Green said.

“It’s the ongoing effect after that.

“You’ve got other businesses trying to get their stuff sorted, there’s a lot of houses that got inundated this time.

“The town itself has had this slow progression, trying to get back to normality.”

There was still some ways to go.

“I don’t think we’re there yet... we’re on the right trajectory, let’s put it like that.

“Hopefully the town comes back to some normality soon.”

Realtor Agents2Go said they have no plans to return to their former Mary St home after it was inundated.

Agenst2Go office manager Kieran Ward said the floods had forced the award-winning real estate agency said to join a growing trend among Australian businesses.

Staff were now working from home, with the main points of contact on Facebook and its webpage.

There were no immediate plans to return to the city’s centre.

“At this particular time we‘re not going back (to Mary St),” Mr Ward said.

List of business, and what is known about their future

Royal Hotel (expected to reopen)

Barbers on Mary (expected to reopen)

The Reject Shop (expected to reopen)

Millers

Jay Jays

Commbank (reopening August 2022)

Subway

Micakes Cafe