AURORA | When the worst flooding in 500 years smacked the region this month, it left many local residents stunned that such a deluge could happen in a place as arid as Aurora.
It also dumped gallons of flood water on some local businesses and forced others to close their doors until the water receded.
Now, federal officials are in town working with local businesses to help recover from the floods.
Garth MacDonald, a spokesman for the United States Small Business Administration, said the federal government has doled out just $200,000 in low-interest loans so far, but that number will likely increase.
“We are just really getting started because it takes a little time for folks to finish the applications,” MacDonald said.
So far, the SBA has received 3,700 applications from Colorado businesses seeking low-interest loans to rebuild. Another more than 13,000 homeowners have filed applications with the SBA seeking loans to rebuild.
SBA has set up four business recovery centers in Colorado aimed at helping businesses, but those four are all in the harder-hit communities in northern Colorado.
MacDonald said it’s important that businesses in places like Aurora, which are in counties that have been designated by the federal government as disaster areas, take the steps necessary to get the aid they qualify for.
“We want to get the word out to Aurora individuals because maybe they are not getting the focus of some of the harder-hit areas,” he said.
Officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency met last week with some local business, but it’s unclear this soon after the flooding what Aurora businesses, if any, sustained serious enough damage to require federal aid.
Several businesses were shuttered at the height of the storm, when standing water made it impossible for motorists to get around town.
At East Alameda Avenue and South Havana Street, a river of water flowing west on Alameda from the High Line Canal flooded some businesses and knocked out power to several others.
But, after less than a day, power was back on and businesses like Fat Boys Bar and Grill, which lost power but didn’t sustain any water damage, were back up and running.
At Town Center at Aurora, heavy hail and continued rain on Sept. 14 — two days after the worst of the rains hammered most of the city — left massive puddles of water in the mall’s parking lot.
There was some confusion at the time regarding whether the mall was closed because of the weather, but Warren Green, a spokesman for the mall, said it never closed due to flooding and stayed open during its regular business hours throughout the storms.
Once the puddles cleared, Green said mall officials were relieved to find that there was no lasting damage.
“We were really lucky we didn’t have any meaningful damage either way,” he said.
At Fastsigns at 1690 S Abilene St., owner Lee Cooperman said a dip in the road in front of his business served as a collection point for the rushing water, stranding at least one motorist.
Cooperman said he was reluctant to send his employees home because that means nobody gets paid, but he gave them the choice of leaving when the flooding got really bad.
The deluge made for a fun time for Cooperman’s two dogs, he said, though it was a pain for everyone else.
“They loved it because they like running through water,” he said. “But it was pretty dramatic.”
As for damage, Cooperman said he feels pretty lucky. The carpet in his office was flooded, but none of his equipment was damaged.
The rain stopped for the most part Sept. 15 and Cooperman said by the next day, his business was vacuumed and dried and back up and running.
“Compared to what other people had we were pretty fortunate,” he said. “It killed business, but as far as damage goes we were really lucky.”