Water Damage at Chemac Inc NJ HQ

Upper Saddle River, NJ 12/15 – On September 29, there was an unusually heavy rain fall in Upper Saddle River, New Jersey. Despite the heavy rain, this was not a rare event as Northern New Jersey does occasionally get heavy rains. The problem on this day was related to the roofing work done on the entire building the evening before. Something went “wrong” and by the next morning, the entire building was flooded with water.  An inspector, who viewed the damage, had not seen so much damage in his 40 years working for an insurance company. It was not just a small leak on one side of the building, it turned the inside of the building into a tropical rainforest.

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Water damage – Chemac, Inc. Records Library

Since Texas is more prone to severe flooding, Chemac kept all historical, important data, CRM and other critical systems in its New Jersey facility. The building is a concrete building with a sheet metal roof far from any likely flood source (river, ocean etc). What could possible go wrong? The damage was made worse than a normal flood as the water rained in from above.  Thus, all electronic items that had been raised off the floor,  to avoid a potential ground up flooding, were damaged. In addition, walls, carpets, lighting fixtures,  furniture, and anything in the office wasn’t spared.

The last 8 weeks have been difficult as we have tried to get the location back to “normal”.  We believe we will be back and over 90% operational by 12/1/15. Thus, we wish to thank:

  • our customers for their patience and understanding while we went through this disaster as we were operating at most at 30% of our usual ability.

  • the Servpro Team who did a marvelous job from preventing the spread of mold and getting the offices cleaned out within 2 weeks.

  • the owner(s) of the building who helped coordinate much of the required work.

  • our insurance adjuster for always being positive and supportive.

  • our employees for all their  hard work and long extra hours to get the office back into shape.

As  a note to customers, who may have experienced delays in replies for inquiries and technical questions, we wish to apologize for any inconvenience.  If you did not get an answer to any inquires in the past 8 weeks, please resend any of these requests.  Again, thank you for your understanding and support while we are getting all our systems back on line!