By Tanya De Jesus
tdejesus@kcautv.com
Businesses in the Bridgeport area have stayed dry during this flood but they've still taken a hit.
Thousands of dollars and a lot of extra work hours. That's what businesses in Bridgeport invested preparing for the worst.
Around $100,000 was spent by Jebro Inc. to protect its liquid asphalt supply company from flood waters. A video provided to us by Jebro shows how quickly water took over their barge back in June. That's why a berm that was built to keep the liquid asphalt from spilling into the Missouri River, is now being used to keep the river at bay. But all the preparations happened at a very bad time.
"That is exactly when we started building this and spent all those man hours preparing for this right when we were getting our season kicked off," said Rod Birdsell, the Jebro Human Resources Manager.
But the work paid off. Their business is still dry and the river is now going down.
"There's been really no regrets. Getting the product, keeping the construction going this season has been kind of the key to get our minds off the strange summer that we've had," said Birdsell.
It also cost the packing house equipment manufacturer All Power Inc. close to $100,000 to build barriers to stay dry. But there were some additional expenses.
"Businesses like ours in the Bridgeport area, we had to go out and lease another building in Sioux city that we would move to in the event that we had to move," said Gene Anderson, the president of All Power Inc.
Since they put a lot of money into it, All Power has decided to keep their berm but their going take down some sections to have better access to the facility.
