Most businesses return after White River Junction building floods

This story by Darren Marcy originally appeared in Valley News on September 1.

WHITE RIVER JUNCTION — Almost every business in the Gates Briggs building reopened after flooding on Aug. 15, with the exception of Tuckerbox, a historic restaurant that likely won’t be open for at least a month.

The 130-year-old building was flooded with an estimated 300,000 to 400,000 gallons of water when an automatic sprinkler line snapped, filling the basement with up to 3 feet of water in some areas .

The entire building was closed for 1½ days, many upstairs businesses and offices were allowed to reopen on August 17 once the building was deemed safe.

Another business closed longer than the others, Piecemeal Pies, reopened on Wednesday.

Front desk manager Kimberly Pierce said business was likely double what it would be on a normal day.

“People are very happy to see us again,” Pierce said. “Today was really busy.”

Pierce said their basement was also flooded, but they only store paper goods on the ground floor, so the impact was limited.

Vural and Jackie Oktay, owners of Tuckerbox, returned from Turkey at 2 a.m. Wednesday and 12 hours later still trying to figure out their losses.

The couple had not been on vacation for eight years and had been out of the country for less than a week when they learned of the flooding.

But to come home and see the damage first hand was overwhelming.

“We are very determined,” Jackie Oktay said Wednesday. “But it’s going to be a tough road.”

With losses of up to $1 million, Jackie Oktay said, the couple hoped insurance would help, but said they would be lucky if they covered 60% of their losses.

Currently, the restaurant’s basement is still being cleaned, and there’s no word yet on mold or how much damage there might be to the floors or walls. The business lost most of its food stored in a 19-foot fridge-freezer that had just been purchased in the spring.

In preparation for their trip and to have stock after their return, the Oktays filled the basement with 1 month and a half of supplies.

The 3 feet of water and silt that poured into the basement may have ruined the new refrigeration unit and contaminated all the food except the one on the top shelf.

“It’s hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of merchandise,” Jackie Oktay said.

Cleanup and rebuilding costs are yet to be determined, but the restaurant lost equipment and supplies as well as expensive spices that had just been imported from Turkey.

The Oktays have resorted to renting a refrigerated truck for $350 a day to keep what’s left of his stock cool.

And they continue to pay employees.

“We have great people,” said Jackie Oktay. “We don’t want to lose them.

Tuckerbox, which opened in 2008, was bought by the Oktays in November 2013, and they have made Turkish cuisine their focus. They have doubled their capacity to 100 indoor seats and now serve between 400 and 500 diners per day.

Hundreds of those customers flooded the couple’s inbox with offers of help and donations.

A crowdfunding campaign on Wednesday afternoon had raised $55,820 of a $100,000 goal, with 464 donations made.

It’s that kind of support that the Oktays believe will keep them determined to return to their corner of downtown White River Junction.

Vural Oktay said he brought Turkish food to town, but Tuckerbox is community-owned, and Jackie Oktay said the restaurant will definitely reopen.

David Briggs, who manages the building for the family trust that owns it, said the final parts to repair the sprinkler system had arrived and the repair should be complete by the weekend, with cleaning completed the next week.

Briggs also said the electrical damage did not turn out to be as severe as feared and temporary circuits will soon be in place with permanent repairs completed in time.

The Briggs Opera House remains closed. Because there was nothing planned in the upstairs performance space, a more comprehensive inspection was scheduled to take advantage of the program’s quiet moment.

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