OXFORD, Conn. — A typically bustling shopping plaza in Oxford is seeing a stark difference in customer flow due to roads destroyed by floodwaters and residents dealing with damage.
“I actually tried to open Monday night, but unfortunately I had staff that was unable to actually leave their house,” said Scott Yarnall of Sitting Duck Tavern.
The devastating flooding is expected to impact business throughout the valley for the foreseeable future.
Tom Haynes, owner of the Quarry Walk in Oxford, said, “It’s really going to take some time and the longer that this goes, we’re so afraid that we’re going to start to see business that weren’t flooded be impacted to have to shut their doors.”
The Quarry Walk in Oxford is made up of 55 businesses that employ over 2,000 people.
“And until we can get our roads open, these businesses here are going to suffer,” said Haynes.
Shake This smoothie bar is among the impacted businesses.
Nicholas Heanue, the owner of Shake This, said, “Whatever we were able to put into this, this is all my life savings. So I’m trying to make sure that it stands, I’m trying to make sure that for what we have and what I can do we can at least help out but it’s kind of scary.”
While grateful for all the local assistance, Heanue said he believes there should be greater state and federal aid.
“Some of the resources that we were told were supposed to come here haven’t shown up yet…I also understand that most of our bridges are out but just that little bit of help of just directing traffic would absolutely be able to get more people up here and we can get them back home safe,” said Heanue.
While they wait for that help, they’re trying to take it day by day.
“We’re going to work our hardest to make sure we give the best service the best food, and just let people know they can get here. That’s the biggest thing, people didn’t know they could get here,” said Yarnall.
“One thing that the community can do is just go out and shop and spend some time in your local stores, whether that’s in Seymour, Beacon Falls, Southbury or here in Oxford,” said Haynes.
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Kaelee Collins is a multimedia journalist for FOX61 News. She can be reached at kcollins@fox61.com. Follow her on X, and Instagram.
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