In never-before-seen flooding, family business hopes to reopen in 2 weeks

Florence’s floodwaters got high enough to devastate Lee Boyd’s decades-old family business.

Boyd's monogramming, laser printing and upholstery shop sits off North Bragg Boulevard in Spring Lake, not far from Pope Airfield. It’s just more than a stone's throw from the Little River.

Boyd said he and his family had never seen floodwaters as intense as Florence’s.

“The water never got us like this before,” he said. “We didn’t expect it.”

He said he lost more than $100,000 in machinery and thousands of dollars in product, much of which was ready for pickup.

“We probably had about $6,000 worth of stuff on the floor there that got damaged,” Boyd said, adding that the damages included military nametags that would have to be remade.

He said it was difficult to see what had been lost in the flooding.

“There's a lot of stuff we're losing that's like keepsakes,” Boyd said. “But it’s not keepsakes anymore. It's just gone.”

“You just have to press on and pray it won't happen again,” he continued. “There's people out here on West Manchester that's having a worse time than we are -- I can tell you that right now.”

Airmen from Pope Airfield said they plan to help clean out Boyd’s shop.

The shop did not have flood insurance, but Boyd says he plans to reopen within two weeks.