Floodwater as high as 3m swept through ABC Printing in Milton, inflicting about $2 million worth of damage, according to director Alan Atterton.
ABC Printing was able to resume production within days thanks to the help of other printers, and worked out of five other sites for the next two months.
Over the past year, ABC Printing’s machinery has since been upgraded and the business has moved to a new purpose-built site, but the company is still behind financially, said Atterton.
That includes an ongoing struggle with its insurer.
Atterton said ABC Printing had also relied on dedicated staff and supportive suppliers to stay alive.
“We’ve got a big fight ahead of us to continue to rebuild ourselves,” he said.
Some $250,000 of damage was caused when 1.7m of water rose through the premises of Snap Milton, said co-owner Cynthia Terry.
She said that while her insurer only covered part of the damage, she was heartened by the prompt payout, and also credited the help from past and present employees, and the “brilliant” support of Snap corporate and other franchise owners.
Importantly, a server and a couple of computers were saved, so Terry was able to resume taking orders a week later after transferring the phone and fax lines to her home.
Orders were produced at other Snap sites in Brisbane and Sydney, until Milton reopened in March.
MBE South Brisbane endured “a pretty rough time financially” due to the flood, said owner Paul Stenhouse.
He learned the hard way he wasn’t insured against the flood.
“We’re probably only just getting back to 100% as far as turnover value goes. As far as operationally, we were back at 100% within two months,” he said. The road to recovery included an upgrade to a Fuji Xerox Colour 1000 press and 4112 B&W printer.
Worldwide South Brisbane managed to save about a dozen machines, but lost large-format inkjet printers, addressing machines, an envelope printer and a laminator.
Owner George Bacic said his site returned to full production in three weeks.
He gave a lot of credit to the 60 staff, friends and passers-by who helped with the clean-up and also his loyal customers.
“The support of our customers was phenomenal. They didn’t go to other places to get their work done – they waited. They’ve been very supportive in the past 12 months,” he said.
Bacic also paid tribute to his insurer. Although the Worldwide store was not covered against floods, the insurer provided some money on the basis the flooding had been partially caused by backed-up drains. The landlord also agreed to foot the bill for any repairs Bacic made.
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