The owner of SpinNations Family Skating Center in Port Richey said this is the second time in less than a year he’s had to replace his skating rink because of flooding.
In Aug. 2015 Jim Balay said the rink at 8345 Congress Street was flooded by a hundred year storm. On Friday, his rink was flooded by the tail end of Hurricane Hermine.
“It came fast,” Balay said. “This is our 10th flood. Since 2012 we've had 3 total wipeouts.”
Balay purchased the business in 1998. He said they never had to worry about major flooding until 2012. That’s when Balay said the area around him got developed with more businesses, and subdivisions.
Balay said all of the development was poorly thought out and now his business gets flooded because the water has no where to drain to.
“Not angry, but I'm really disappointed in the county,” Balay said. “And when it happens one time OK, when it happens a second time start looking, now it happened a third time there is definitely something wrong.”
Balay said he has flood insurance but they won’t pay him for lost revenue. If he estimates that when he reopens in the next two months he’ll have taken an $80,000 hit.
“We’ll reopen sometime in October,” Balay said. “We’ll have a grand reopening and invite a thousand people out to skate for free.”
