TOWN OF TONAWANDA, N.Y. (WKBW) — The flash flooding drove more than 100 customers made their way to Valu Home Center in the Town of Tonawanda today to get supplies for their basement cleanup.
"We're trying to keep up with them and keep up with the demand," said Tom Tucker, Floor Manager at the Valu in the Town of Tonawanda.
He says they've even had to re-stock products.
"We've had a lot of people come in for sump pumps, sump pump switches, mops, brooms and cleaning products for their basements," said Tucker.
Basements like Sally Jo Schmidt's in the Town of Tonawanda.
"There were floating things. All the kids' toys were floating and some books were floating. Ah, what are you gonna do," said Schmidt.
Like many people in the area, Sally was woken up by a flood warning on her phone. But it was actually her cats that let her know her basement was flooding.
"My cat was going crazy because we keep the cat boxes down here, so I ran down here to see what was up and there was a couple inches of water. It was quite a mess," said Schmidt.
So she called for help and started cleaning up. She says it's ironic because her husband is a plumber.
"He works for Roy's and I think our float on our sump pump didn't work properly, so that was the demise of our basement," said Schmidt.
Some people in Kenmore also saw some flooding.
"At about five I got up and looked out the window and saw lots of water, so I thought I better go into the basement and just check and sure enough there was water," said Marci Brogman of Kenmore.
Brogman was able to clean out her basement by noon.
Schmidt's floors are mostly dry and overall, damage is minimal.
"It's coming up the walls a little bit, but it's pretty good. We've got good insurance, so hopefully they'll just take care of it and we'll be good," said Schmidt.
