The Royal Oak Hotel needed two pumps to clear their cellar which completely flooded on Tuesday morning, and the carpet was soaked meaning it all has to be replaced.

“It looked like a war scene,” hotel owner John Harvey said.

While Dr. Harvey said it was ‘quite upsetting’ to see the hotel become inundated with water, the situation was out of their control.

“There is no use sitting around worrying about something you can’t change,” he said.

The water remained up for around three hours, and then Dr. Harvey and other staff started working to clean up as much as they could, while the carpets got ripped up on Thursday.

Dr. Harvey said the café is planning to open at 7am on Saturday, while the restaurant should be open for Wednesday dinner.

He said the council has been fantastic in assisting, and have been readily available with advice to help get the pub up and running.

Peden’s Hotel also had to battle with flood water, particularly from cars driving past and pushing the water up into waves against their building.

Owner Jeff Callaghan said they have lost all of the carpet, food, alcohol and potentially some of the furniture.

Mr. Callaghan was also optimistic about the situation saying while it is not good, it doesn’t bother him.

“It’s disruptive but none of us got electrocuted,” he said.

Peden’s will be shut for at least one week while repairs take place.

Further north on Vincent Street, SportsPower suffered a crack in their roof on Tuesday morning.

“It turned the front half of the store into a waterfall,” store owner Nathan McCabe said.

The water caused severe damage to stock, fixtures and fittings and meant the business could not operate out of the building, with no idea on when the damage will be fixed.

Mr. McCabe got in contact with Clint Ekert from Balloon Worx across the road, who put him onto his building owner and they managed to sort out a temporary store in the vacant area next to Balloon Worx.

Staff, family and friends all chipped in to transfer everything to the vacant building and SportsPower plan to operate there until the situation is sorted.