EVANSVILLE, Ind. (WFIE) – A local comic book store was left with over half of their inventory destroyed by the flash flooding from over the weekend.
Secret Headquarters was opened by Jeff Osborne and his daughter Keira a decade ago.
Employees of the small business say the flash flooding filled the store with more than a foot of water in minutes.
“It was just like a river is what it looked like, up to the door and everything.” Kiera says. “It was very gut-wrenching.”
They say about 80% of their merchandise was destroyed by the water in the blink of an eye.
“I had a lot of things protected, but the footage they showed me of the garage – there was stuff in totes that had just been picked up and dumped over,” Jeff says. “Everything in here is paper, everything in here is cardboard, and water is just unforgiving.”
Some of the now water logged comic books are worth a small fortune, and also lost to the water are about a dozen vintage arcade machines, each worth several thousand dollars.
“With collectables and insurance, there’s a fine line where you may never see a penny back,” Jeff says.
For a family that spends most of their time enjoying worlds far away from their own, they say it was a scene so surreal it might’ve been lifted off one of the pages of their comic books.
“It just looked like a sci-fi movie,” Jeff says. “I just never would’ve thought it would’ve happened to me.”
A GoFundMe has been created to support Secret Headquarters as the clean up continues. You can find that link
here
.
