Jimmy Possum's Brisbane store faces anxious wait

By Karen Sweeney
Updated November 7 2012 - 3:43am, first published January 12 2011 - 10:52am

JIMMY Possum staff in Bendigo are watching nervously as floodwaters rise around the company’s Brisbane store.Despite initial reports the company’s largest store, in Fortitude Valley, would be safe from floodwaters, they’re facing reports that water could reach a metre deep outside the shop and up to two metres inside, as the store is set below street level.Jimmy Possum director Margot Spalding said waters had been expected to peak about 4am today while power to the area was cut yesterday lunchtime, which had restricted contact with staff in the city.Ms Spalding said the situation was “extremely serious” for the business and said staff had banded together to help where they could. “Peter, our national sales manager ... was there until 11pm last night,” she said.“We had a team of about 10 people and removalists move our products up onto the second flood, but we can’t fit it all up. “We’ve put sofas on tables and realised the fact that we’ll have to sacrifice the tables.”Ms Spalding said the flood would not only have a huge financial impact on the Brisbane store, but in Bendigo as well.“Not only do we lose sales in our Brisbane store for the month, which is hundreds of thousands of dollars, but our factory doesn’t receive orders from Brisbane,” she said.“We had a big truck on its way up to Brisbane and it was full but it got stopped at Warwick,” she said.“We chose to turn the truck around ... it’s a good thing we did because you now can’t get anywhere from Warwick.”Staff at Jimmy Possum in Bendigo are preparing to help the company come back from losses.“We’re meeting every couple of hours to keep updated on what is going on,” Ms Spalding said. “When the water subsides we’ll need teams from here to go up and we’ve already had a meeting here at the factory and staff have said they’ll go, said they’ll take annual leave and go up to help.“Our staff in Brisbane, some have come in with their partners to help us out, dozens of staff with their partners and one guy who doesn’t work for us anymore even came in with his partner to help out.“Our staff are fantastic and we couldn’t do anything without them.”

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