Cyndi Ecker might not go so far as to say she's glad the Midwest floods left her family's third-generation florist business sitting in up to five feet of water in Waverly, Iowa. But she will say that the forced do-over of the 65-year-old Ecker's Flowers and Greenhouses is somewhat of a blessing in disguise.

Cyndi Ecker points out flood damage to Ecker's Flowers and Greenhouses. CREDIT: Waverly Newspapers

"We've been trying to reshape ourselves over the years to evolve with the competition from the big boxes," Ecker says, via cell phone, standing in the dank shell of the business, two weeks after the flood hit. Some of that evolution has included a greater emphasis on the established landscaping side and the addition, four years ago, of a plant-installation department.

But with a slate wiped clean (and still quite damp) from the floods, Ecker says she and partner Lyman Campbell are asking each other, "What will our new look and business be?"

One with fewer shackles seems to be an answer. "We've somehow engineered ourselves into a business that does not allow us a lot of free time," she says. "This is an opportunity to continue our business, but scale back some of the burden of it." 

She and Campbell, also her partner in life, analyzed those "burdens," and found that utilities — especially heating the business's greenhouses — top the list. "So we're thinking of being a three-season greenhouse," she says. Looking at her empty showroom, Ecker says she'll use the forced renovation to move the design area next to the sales area, "so I can take care of my customers while I'm designing," a change she suspects will allow her to operate with fewer staff.

Ecker is hopeful she'll be eligible for an SBA disaster recovery loan to support the rebuild.  "With my office under water, it's tough, " she says of filling out the paperwork. "I sense they really want to see us get on our feet."

Floods in Waverly, Iowa, left Cyndi Ecker reviewing the damage to her shop — but didn't stop her from doing business. Ecker borrowed space from a wholesaler and didn't miss the weddings on her (soggy) books the weekend after the storms.

It's not as if she's been kicking back in the meantime. Ecker has been able to accomplish what seemed impossible back in those early days of wading through "slime and muck." Just days after the floods hit, with the space and product from Bill Doran Company wholesale florist, she designed and delivered flowers for a wedding reception, birthday party and two sets of wedding-altar flowers. "Oh yes, we're open for business," she says. "I want my customers to know that we're OK and we'll take care of them. I want them to feel confident that we are trustworthy, stable and stalwart."

Last weekend, she did three weddings, and she has already welcomed a few customers into the empty and damp, but order-taking, store. The water's gone, except in the basement offices, where it still leeches through the walls. 

"The wonderful thing about flowers is that if you have a good cooler, you're in business," she says. In fact, just one of the business's three coolers was destroyed by the flood — and Ecker even sees its demise as a blessing. "It was 50 years old, I don't know how we otherwise would have replaced it." 

Ecker's optimism hasn't blinded her from the sheer amount of smelly and soggy work ahead of her. When she has to step out to tend to one of the thousands of post-flood tasks on the list, she says she's tempted to put a sign up that reads: "Gone fishing." She resists — her sign simply reads, "Be right back." And her customers know she will.

--Kate F. Penn
kpenn@safnow.org

 

Previous Article    Next Article