Staff at a Deeside business fear they might not be able to reopen before Christmas after being swamped by several feet of water.
Hidden Scotland Shop at Milton of Crathes was flooded by the River Dee on Friday as torrential rain battered much of the region.
Staff desperately raced to erect flood defences and pile up sandbags, but up to 3ft still spread through the shop.
It was completely gone by this morning, but the damage will take weeks to clear.
‘It was a total wash out’
Eryn Inglis was working at the shop when water levels in the area began to rise.
She said the defences bought them some time but before long, the shop floor was “fully under.”
She said: “We were pretty much fully under. I think the tide mark is probably about three feet in the shop and then two feet in the studio; a total wash out I would say.
“There was a point where we thought, this is the river. We didn’t push it; it was always safe and the folk from the estate were down helping us.
“We put up the flood gates and we sandbagged which definitely slowed the flow into the shop and bought us quite a bit of time. It was definitely a different Friday from what we all expected.”
Nearby locals and passers-by turned out to lend staff a helping hand as they raced to empty the store.
Neighbouring premises Milton Brasserie closed their conservatory off to customers to provide a space for the shop’s valuable stock.
Miss Inglis added: “Fortunately, we managed to get most of the stock, if not pretty much all of the stock out of the shop.
“As soon as we noticed it was starting to be quite serious it was just all hands on deck. Fortunately, everyone rallied around and we got everything boxed up and out of there.”
Store could remain closed until after Christmas
Staff say the scale of the damage to the shop is unclear, leaving them uncertain as to when they will be able to reopen.
The shop worker added: “We are not sure if it will be this side of Christmas that will be open which is obviously quite devastating for us.
“We are lucky that we have still got the online side of things that we will keep going. We’ve got a Christmas market at Glen Tanar on December 4 so we will put a big push towards that and make that our pop-up shop to see us through the festive season and try and salvage what we can.”
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