JACKSONVILLE, Ark. – Some roads in Jacksonville are still blocked off and flooded from severe storms, with Redmond Road being one of many flooded roads affecting businesses in the area.
John Barber owns three businesses on the road and says they’ve been closed since the storm hit.
“Even though with all the storms we’ve had in the past, we’ve never had it so bad where we couldn’t get to the business,” Barber said.
Barber said he used a canoe to get to and from his businesses and recently saw how much damage the storm left behind.
“There was about 12 inches of water in our offices, so we lost quite a bit of electronics and various things like that as well as damage to the interior walls,” Barber said.
He is now left to reconstruct and replace thousands of dollars’ worth of equipment, leaving his employees out of a job.
John’s daughter,r Christina Barber, manages his gym and says it was disappointing to not have people return Monday morning.
“I hope it just gets better, really; I hope that they can just get some stability in their lives,” Christina said.
John says he’s hoping that Jacksonville leaders will work towards having a better drainage system to prevent situations like his.
“I think that they’ve listened in the past and tried to do some work on it but again nothing seems to be working,” Barber said.