If you can’t beat the flood, join the flood.
I went through a number of different opening lines in my head. There’s really too many to choose from when your presenting a story about a business owner intentionally flooding his restaurant in order to… deter flood damage. It’s a big brained move, and prompted me to think up these story-starters:
-Sometimes you have to beat the flood at it’s own game.
-They say offense can be the best defense
-What the hell is this guy doing?
I’d imagine that last one in particular will be relatable. I know that’s how I felt when I first saw a video of the riverfront-restaurant-turned-swimming-pool. It’s called Captain’s Quarters Riverside Grille, and it’s located in Prospect, Kentucky right by the Ohio River. With the recent historic rainfall in Arkansas, Tennessee and Kentucky – among other states – the Prospect restaurant went into their flood protocol.
Co-owner Andrew Masterson posted a video on social media detailing their efforts, which included removing all of the restaurant’s equipment and machinery, and then filling the entirety of the building with six feet of clean water. They used sinks, faucets and a well water pump to bring all of the clean water into the restaurant… in order to keep the dirty flood water out.
It’s a bold strategy cotton, but it sure looks like it’s working out:
@cnn Andrew Masterson, co-owner of Captain’s Quarters Riverside Grille near Louisville, told CNN he deliberately filled his riverfront business with fresh water to keep dirty floodwaters out amid widespread flooding in Kentucky. #cnn #news #kentucky ♬ original sound – CNN
If you are wondering why the fine people at Captain’s Quarters Riverside Grille would deliberately flood their own building, they’ve actually been flooded so many times that they have this down to a science.
First off, filling the inside of the building with clean water helps to keep the dirty floodwater out of the building. It also matches the pressure of the water outside that’s trying to push into the restaurant, which helps keep glass windows and structure intact (the building is apparently made mostly of cinderblocks and tile).
In turn, when it comes time for clean up when the Ohio River goes back to a normal level, it actually saves them a lot of money. If they are going to have to do clean up anyways, they’d rather have to do it knowing that it was only clean water that affected the inside of their building, and no other debris from the outside entered in. All in all, it’s a heady-yet-confusing way to avoid extensive and expensive clean up.
If you are still mind-boggled by the whole thing, you aren’t alone. Many people in the comment section are in the same boat (no flood pun intended), and they’ve decided to cope with their inability to understand by cracking jokes about the peculiar flood aversion:
“I preshit my pants when my stomach hurts.”
“Dude said, ‘No one floods my own building but me!'”
“That water bill is gonna be insane.”
“Strange, genius move.”
“Did he Uno Reverse Card the flood?”
“Mans playing chess not checkers.”
“Why is the fireplace on like we are waiting to be seated?”
