PULLMAN, Wash. — Several businesses in downtown Pullman are dealing with the aftermath of the recent weekend flooding, and some of them blame the city’s latest reconstruction.
Longtime downtown business owner Melanie Hodges, whose dress shop has been running for 20 years, say’s Friday morning was when she was made aware that her business was flooded.
“This is my livelihood, this is my everything,” Hodges said.
The owner says 491 dresses were damaged in the flooding. They will now have to be hand washed one by one. She said this is another financial setback after the city took eight months to rebuild the street, which affected the number of people that were coming into the store.
This weekend’s flooding comes after the completion of Project Downtown Pullman, which finished a little more than a year ago. It included full street and sidewalk reconstruction with new sewer and storm mains aiming to prevent flooding in the town.
The project also made significant upgrades to downtown like widen sidewalks, improve landscaping and make streets more accessible.
Hodges criticized the city’s planning and execution.
“When you do a design that doesn’t work and this happens to a business, that’s not right,” she said. “There were people paid a lot of money to do this project, to make sure that this didn’t happen.”
The city project used $12.3 million of its utility and street funds along with local and federal grants.
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