DAVENPORT, Iowa – Laura Heath is the owner of Trash Can Annie’s Vintage Clothing along the Mississippi River and never has she seen flooding this bad in her more than 40 years in business.
When Heath came into work this morning, she saw the water was eye level with the top of the concrete wall next to the flooded waters. All the water has to do is trickle down the hill and through the front door of the conjoined business of Ragged Records and Trash Can Annie’s.
There’s a first time for everything and for Heath when she saw the rising waters it set off a rush of urgency.
“My friend, Bob Herington, who has Ragged Records, called me and said, ‘get down here now’,” Heath remembers when she heard about the water Tuesday morning.
Right away it was all hands-on deck to save the store that has been in downtown Davenport for decades.
“I called one person who got 15 people for me,” says Heath.
30 people later, friends and unfamiliar faces were seen making an assembly line to haul boxes of vinyl and vintage clothing to higher ground.
“Me, honestly, this is the first time I’ve been here,” says volunteer Mike Coyne-Logan.
The volunteer crew moves the records up the flight of stairs to keep them dry from the potential record-breaking flood.
“Records and vinyl don’t mix well,” says Ragged Records Owner, Bob Herington.
“The humidity will make it wobbly, which you want flat vinyl,” explains volunteer Becky Wren.
The weather forecast the rest of the week predicts more rain – about 2 to 4 inches by Thursday. That could make 2019 the chart-topping flood on record for the Quad Cities.
“She’s mighty, that’s why they call her the “Mighty Mississippi”,” says Heath.
The volunteers keep hauling box after box with hopes of saving their store and press pause on the flood of 2019.
The owners say once the flooding subsides, they will need just as much help with bringing the records and clothing back into the store.
