Tim Lamprey, owner of Harbor Garden Center in Salisbury, Mass., was talking on his cell phone one afternoon with a local newslady when he was asked, “So how are you feeling?” He told her, “I’m sitting here in my pickup truck and I’m looking at a flock of mallards swimming around.” Then he realized those mallards were actually “swimming around” in his parking lot.

The springs of 2006 and 2007 weren’t particularly kind to Lamprey and his garden center. “In 2006, on Mother’s Day weekend, we had 21 inches of rain in a little over two days,” Lamprey recounts. “In 2007, it was even worse and we ended up with 37 inches of water in the store.”
Still, Lamprey and his staff pulled on their hip boots, waded into the greenhouse and never gave up on the business.

Drop In The Bucket
Behind the .75-acre property, Harbor Garden Center borders a wetland. From the wetland, a large pipe drains excess water under U.S. Route 1 and out to the Merrimack River. In 2006, “Unbeknownst to us, the pipe had plugged,” Lamprey says. “So on Mother’s Day weekend, when the rains came down, the water didn’t go out. Our greenhouse had about a foot of water in it.”

For Harbor Garden Center, that Mother’s Day was a wash, literally. “There was nothing we could do, because it poured all day,” he says. “But it was a horrible weekend for everyone, so we just adapted to that. We went into the greenhouse, pulled out the plants and displayed them in front of the store.”
Lamprey weathered the storm, but little did he know it was just a warm-up for the following year.

Round 2
“On April 17, 2007, not that I remember dates, we had a northeast gale and we also had the highest tides of the year,” he recalled. On any other day, this garden center located near the mouth of the Merrimack River would be protected by an old railroad bed that runs through the bordering wetland. Unfortunately, the conditions were so severe that waters pushed through and washed the rail overpass out.

“The odd thing was on the Sunday before the heavy rains, we had just finished building a brand new greenhouse. We were hoping it wouldn’t drift out to sea. We also had a brand new cash wrap installed seven days earlier.” There were times Lamprey and his staff couldn’t get anywhere near the garden center. “The water came up over U.S. Route 1 and at high tide there was six feet of water covering the road.” The garden center wound up with 37 inches of water in the store. At low tide, Lamprey was able to return to the store and assess the damage. “The first day we came back, I opened the door and plastic flower pots and seed packets came floating out the door.” Those seeds actually settled outside, beyond property lines and produced “some wonderful lettuce plants.”

What A Mess
As the water receded, Harbor Garden Center was forced to shut off its gas and electricity. They rented giant dumpsters to sort the good from the bad. The good was placed into plastic tubs, which were then placed into rented ground-level containers.

“We had to tear out all the walls, tear out the insulation, bring in industrial-sized dehumidifiers and we also hired a company to come in and disinfect everything: shelves, walls, floors,” Lamprey recounts. The rebuild and restock of Harbor Garden Center took place as the team prepared for the spring busy season. The actual storeroom was closed from April 17 to the Friday before Memorial Day.

During clean-up efforts, Harbor’s devoted customers still showed up. Lamprey connected with a company called Mobile Storage that brought in pop-up type offices. Lamprey also called a good friend who was an electrician. He ran electricity and the telephone lines out to their new, makeshift checkout area.

“We also set up tables out front with merchandise we knew people would be looking for.” Harbor Garden Center wasn’t running at 100 percent, but they were ready for the Mother’s Day rush.

“That Friday, Saturday and Sunday, (without the store and just selling livegoods) we were within 10 percent of our record for Mother’s Day weekend,” Lamprey says. “People would come in and give us a hug and say, ‘Oh my, it’s so good to see you open.’”

When Harbor opened up on that busy weekend, three other area garden centers pulled together and bought a full page ad in the local newspaper. It read: Harbor Garden Center back up in business. That selfless effort brought a Massachusetts State Representative in to visit Harbor Garden Center. The politician said, “I don’t think there’s any other industry where your competitors would all jump in together and buy you an ad to say you were back open.”

Helping Hand(s)
From water pumps donated by the fire department to extended terms from their distributors, Lamprey knows that without the help of others, he wouldn’t have been able to get his shop’s head above water in the short time they did. “I think the biggest mistake people can make in this situation is not reaching out to other people for help,” says the Harbor Garden Center owner. “When we did, we found out that people were there quickly.”

In retrospect, Lamprey is certain he couldn’t have sat down and wrote out a scenario plan of what to do and how to do it. “So much of this was by the seat of your pants,” he says. To deal with the stress of it all, he simply talked it out. “I turned to a person that had been my attorney and friend for many years. John died of cancer in 2008. He was there to say, ‘Okay, here’s what you’ve got to do.’ He pointed me in the right direction and then we did what everyone else in small business does – we hunkered down and just did it. The answer is it can be done.”