Bean Hollow

05/27/2022

Hi Everyone!
It has been quite some time since I have posted. I often think about writing but it's always hard to know what to say. On this 4yr anniversary of the 2018 flood, skies loom heavy overhead and over heavy hearts, once again laden with the threat of more flooding rains. The threat may or may not be real, but the weather forecast seems a cruel twist of a knife in a still fresh wound. It's funny how four years ago can still feel like yesterday.
On this 4yr anniversary, a day that is already so painful for those of us who still struggle with the anxiety and dread every time heavy rains are predicted, the words won't come any easier as my mind is distracted and scrambling about inside my skull, reliving not only my own trauma but also the collective trauma of a whole community, while also worrying about the merchants and residents of OEC, those who remained and those who have moved in since 2018. There is only one thing that I know I can say with 100% confidence, although with close to 0% ability to put into words-I wanted to thank you all for the community, the love and the heart that you gave Bean Hollow and my family and continue to give over the last many years. We miss you all dearly. I am still dumbfounded to this day by the number of people who continue to reach out.
Thank you to all of you who have shared your engagement and wedding photos over the last 4yrs! Like you, my husband and I met at 8059 Main Street when I was a barista for the Riverside Cafe. I can't tell you what it means to see Bean Hollow included in your wedding and your memories!! To those of you who got Bean Hollow tattoos, I heart you so much-and I'm jealous! Once I find a job, it will be the first thing I do:) (M & M-you know who you are.)
I still find it shocking when I open up FB to find new BH likes, followers and messages. I can't explain what that feels like, but please know that it brings a much needed smile and comfort.
Many of you have reached out to ask what our plans are. The answer to that is still elusive to me and the main reason I leave the BH page up. I miss roasting coffee, the smells of the cafe, the chatter and laughter of customers, being a part of our staff's lives and watching them grow, the sense of community and my fellow merchants and residents of EC. I miss all of you most of all. But, it's been a rough 4yrs between floods, the loss of 4 dear friends, and of course a pandemic. We've looked at dozen's of spaces over the years and were close once, in Jan 2020, to purchasing a turn key and once again in 2021 to signing a lease for a space, but it didn't feel quite right or the right time. I am of two minds-the want for BH to be once again is strong, but the knowledge of what that entails to make it so is equally strong. So, for now, I leave the future open to possibility. I can only be definite in my gratitude for all of you who have kept me tethered to my heart and so many happy memories. Please keep all of O.E.C. in your prayers and hearts.
-With so much Love-Gretchen

07/22/2020

If you’ve been missing the Bean Hollow desserts, go to the PHOENIX Upper Main, now located in what was the Ellicott Mills Brewery!!!
You’ll also be supporting an amazing family and an amazing community. XO’s to you all-I miss you.

We didn’t sell desserts at Phoenix in Lower Main. With only 14 tables, it made more sense to send our guests to Bean Hollow. They did desserts right. We’ve heard that you’ve been missing your Bean Holllow favorites. So, with Gretchen’s blessing, we’re offering her greatest hits. Starting tonight at 5:00, the Peanut Butter Bomb, Coconut Snowball, Key Lime Pie, and Chocolate Velvet Cheesecake return to Main Street. Available for indoor/outdoor dining and Curbside Carryout on phoenixuppermain.com

07/17/2019

The few salvaged pieces of Bean Hollow are finding new homes with amazing people in amazing places.
Thank you Mark Hemmis for finding a place for us in your heart and in The Phoenix Emporium:) You are a true pillar of CommUNITY. Thank you for the happy tears:) and the happy years I had with you as my neighbor. ❤️

Proud to display Gretchen Shuey's Bean Hollow sign at the Phoenix to honor all that she's done for our community and all the help she's given us over these many years.

05/28/2019

Hi all!
Such a long post I wrote yesterday, and yet I managed to fail to mention one other thing:)
Jim and I are still considering roasting our coffee for wholesale and on-line retail sales. We have been so busy sorting through the aftermath of this second flood and looking at spaces for a coffee shop, that we hadn't really considered another option until recently.
There are two ways we can do this. We either need to find a location that is zoned for "light industrial", or we need to find a retail location where we could roast our coffee for wholesale and retail, but also include a small store front space for carry out drinks, pastries, bulk coffee and tea, and some specialty items.

If you know of a space, we'd really appreciate it if you would share that information with us. We are looking for something btw 900-1500sq ft with plumbing and gas lines. Preferably, it would have a bathroom and an easy entrance for bringing in 150lb bags of beans!
I really miss my Blend Over:):):)

Thank you all for your kind words and prayers following yesterday's post. It was a hard one to write, and it meant a lot to me to hear from you. Bless you. Much love.-G

05/27/2019

One year ago today...One year ago today...So many posts starting with those four words on this day, Memorial Day. All of us acknowledging the sacrifices made by our soldiers and their families, but inescapably, painfully, aware that it was one year ago today that the flood of 2018 wiped out our businesses, our homes and our community once again. I don't want to acknowledge it on this day, Memorial Day.

As I sit here in gratitude for all our servicemen and women, their families, including my grandfathers, grandmothers and my In-Laws, who sacrificed and gave for our Country, I realize that I am also sitting here in gratitude for all that has happened since One Year Ago Today.

As always, the words created by the flood of my swirling emotions are hard to capture and hold onto long enough to make sentences. I sit here hoping that as I tentatively pluck out a letter at a time, my fingers will somehow manage to grasp and hold onto a word here and there:)
The easiest words for me to find are: Thank you, gratitude, love, compassion, hope, giving, caring, holding, helping, hands, kindness, faith, strength, beauty, awe, blessings, and light. All these words I could use to describe what you all have given me, but I cannot seem to be able to place them in a neatly typed, orderly row of words that could ever possibly describe what all of you and Bean Hollow have meant to me and my family.
I hold all of you in my heart forever, and I am forever changed by the blessings you all have bestowed upon me and my family. Thank you for giving me strength, holding me in my grief, giving me light when things seemed dark, and showing me the beauty that exists all around us.

It is with great sorrow, great hope, and with absolute faith in our future adventures that I tell you on this day, One Year Ago Today, Memorial Day, that we have decided to not rebuild Bean Hollow. It's been a long year of sorting through all the grief, anger, fear, love, and gratitude, to come to a place of peace and hope. Fear and grief being the ever present undercurrent to everything. I have come to a space where I realize and accept that life is ever changing and I certainly have a vast history of being able to explore and re-create myself in ways that have lead me to now. A place and time that I am grateful for.

Since graduating college, I have undergone many metamorphosis'. I have been a bear researcher for Utah State University and worked for the F.S. in AK. I worked for the M.D. DNR doing stream and fish surveys, worked for the HoCo Conservancy writing grants, newsletters, designing trail walks for the Living Classroom kids, and organizing volunteers, I've been a personal trainer, I have gotten certifications as a vet tech assistant, CPR, First Aid, and received my Red card for fighting forest fires. I have been blessed to be as most of you know me, a coffee shop owner, and more importantly blessed by this community.
Now, now it is time for me to accept that I am meant to evolve once again. I didn't plan on it. I didn't want it, but I am ready for it. I don't know where this new path will lead me, but the very words that my limited mind was able to capture while thinking of all of you are the very words that give me faith.
I do have to find work soon:), but for now, I am enjoying being home for my kids, present for my husband, rediscovering my love of drawing, and taking drum lessons. In ten years, keep your eyes open for a 60yr old female version of Keith Moon. Maybe it will be me:):):)
I am grateful to all of you who have supported and loved BH, me, my family and E.C.

I would love to finish this post by being able to just settle into all the love and overwhelming feelings I have regarding all of you, this past year, and the year ahead, but I feel compelled to add one last thing that I would like you to think about, and help with if you can. This request is not for me, although it was certainly a deciding factor in our decision to not rebuild. I really need your help to help Mark Hemmis, his family, and the amazing staff members at the Phoenix.(site of my first date with my now husband, 23yrs ago:)
Howard County is receiving state and federal funds to complete plan 3.g.7.0. This plan involves acquiring and demolishing four buildings (I remain suspicious about the fact that the same four buildings were included in all five of the proposed plans, and all four were the only buildings of the ten originally slated to be demolished, that are privately owned-the rest being owned by developers). Federal Law states that any project that involves the displacement of tenants requires that those tenants be provided the cost of relocation and business establishment. The federal funds do not need to be used specifically for the acquisition of the buildings. If federal funds are used in any part of the project, the federal law applies. If I am understanding the law correctly, state law says the same. To date, Howard County has refused to acknowledge their obligations under federal or state law. For those of you who may say "Get a lawyer." I will tell you that a lawyer will charge btw $350-$500 an hour or 30% of the settlement, and I will tell you that several kind hearted lawyers have offered free counseling and, bc they know of the financial devastation every business has experienced since the floods, have suggested that their services should not be needed bc the law is clear..
Imagine building a business, working endless days while pouring your heart and soul into it, building a community, giving of yourself and your family to give back to that community every day, and then think of Mark Hemmis at the Phoenix, who is being told to get out and move on with no compensation for the loss of his livelihood, the future he planned for himself and his family, or the sacrifices that every small business owner makes to be community.
My question is this, "Why have they done nothing for the tenants?"
A 140 million dollar plan, and they are cost cutting at the expense of the business owners and residents who made this historic town a place of joy and fond memories for people and families all across the planet-not even mentioning the revenue generated for the county and state on the backs of hard working families.

Thank you all for indulging me this one last (really long) post:)
I miss you. I am grateful for you. I will hold these last 16yrs with Bean Hollow and all of you who made it such a joy to go to work, in my heart forever.
As always, I am signing off with so much love and gratitude for all of you.
Gretchen

02/08/2019

Happy Friday everyone!
As I stated in my previous post, I felt a need to put everything on the back burner until the New Year. 2018 was a rough year for Bean Hollow, and for me personally, as my landlord passed away from lung cancer, and 3 dear friends also passed away. I wasn’t sure I could manage to pick myself up once again. I was pretty sure I couldn’t. In fact, I was pretty adamant that I was going to live the rest of my life as a starving artist, and I entertained fantasies of my children coming home to find me in my overalls, sitting in a paint splattered room with a cigarette dangling from my lips, a beer at my side and a paintbrush in hand. If nothing else, I would be the stuff of family legend!! Alas, I will save that image for my adult children when I am retired:)
Over the last four months I found myself experimenting with combining whatever various coffee is on sale, (from the Giant to Trader Joe’s to Home Good’s-I don’t dare step foot in Target) and wondering if blending Trader Joe’s Fair Trade Sumatra with Marshall’s “Jamaican Blue Blend”, would make either taste better. The result is that I realized I truly miss playing with coffee, and I have determined that I really do need to get back to roasting my own. Since I’ve barely been able to keep my house coffee tree alive, I must abandon the idea of plucking enough berries from it to keep me caffeinated.
And, mostly...I miss my people. I desperately miss the community. I miss all of you.
Several people have reached out to offer kind words, support, and to inquire about our plans. Thank you!! I really can’t tell you how much it means to us to know that you still think of us. We think of you every day.
For now, I can say that we have a couple of strong possibilities which we will be exploring in the coming weeks. I have a favorite that I am hoping will work with zoning, permitting, etc. I’ll be posting here as soon as I know:)
Thank you to everyone who has reached out to say hello, to give me breath for the next step, to keep me standing, and to remind me that I am not standing alone-
As always- with much love and gratitude from my family to yours.
Thank you. Many hearts to you all.

11/27/2018

Hi Everyone!
I know it's been awhile since I last posted here. Frankly, this second flood kind of knocked me for a loop. Those of you who have followed my posts know that I always struggle to find words to string together. This post was not a struggle because I searched for the right words, but because I have struggled to find which voice with which to speak . There are so many voices in my head; the ones coming from who I want to be, who I try not to be, and who I am, as well as all the voices coming from family and friends.
It was 18 years ago that I sat on the shores that separated the Tongass National Forest from the Inside Passage of Alaskan waters, and aside from the brief interruptions brought by a wandering bear, I dreamed of Bean Hollow. I made lists including everything from Espresso machines to paper cups to copy paper. Two years and two jobs later, my dream became a surreal reality. I am not typically one to recognize pride in any of my accomplishments. I usually find myself confused as to how I got where I am and chalk it up to my guardian angels:), but that first day that Bean Hollow was mine, I walked up to the front door, looked up and down the street, (realized I didn't have a key to the front door:) and for that one day, I allowed myself a sense of pride. I was so happy to embark on this next adventure of being a business owner, and to be a part of the Main Street that I have loved from the day I discovered it when I was 13yrs old.
I can't describe exactly my feelings after the flood of 2016. I felt Immense sadness, of course. Strangely, I felt more despair for the destruction of so many lives and the town than for myself. Throw denial in there. Anger was certainly there, but so was hope and love and determination. The most lasting effect was a sense of awe over the amount of love and generosity we received, and the friendships born of tragedy. I couldn't fathom it, but all that love and support you poured into BH and the town created a foundation from which I was able to rebuild BH and also my spirit. I took each step and each breath with the knowledge that I was so grateful and that the flood, while terrible in so many ways, gave me the gift of a renewed sense of purpose and a heart that was so full of love that I could spend the rest of my life giving it back and never run out.
The flood of 2018 has left me speechless. I actually have not been quite able to catch my breath. I want to rebuild in OEC with all of the fibers of my being, but that is not a choice that I have. Even if we had not known that the county would consider tearing down our building, we knew that the next flood would be coming, and it took all we had financially to rebuild the first time. I was hoping and waiting to post about future plans, but we have none at this time. We have several possibilities simmering while we figure out what is possible and what and how we want to move forward. It's been overwhelming to think about, and I finally decided to let it all go until after the holidays. Typically, this time of year is the busiest time of year for us and I am working while my children have their Christmas break. I'm going to enjoy the first holiday season I've had with my kids since Kodiak was born 14 yrs ago, and pursue our options after the New Year. I want to thank everyone who supported BH, who brought me joy every time you came into BH, who helped us salvage what was left after the first and second flood, who provided meals, provided clothing for my children, donated to our GoFundMe page and provided prayers and a shoulder to cry on. Every time I think about giving up, I think about how much I miss all of you. A pillar of strength is only as strong as the foundation and is only able to remain standing because of the care given by a community that continues to patch the cracks, fill the holes and support it when it starts to lean. Thank you for keeping me standing.
If any of you are missing being abused by the Barista extraordinaire, lovely Sara and a couple of my other fellow BH family, you should check out Jaxon Edwin which opened up the street from BH. I've heard the service is impeccable:)
My last thought before the New Year is a wish that all of you who are able, please visit the shops on Main and help support the many people who have worked tirelessly to rebuild, and have spent sleepless nights trying to create holiday magic for you. Help bring a Happy Holiday to the merchants on Main, and also to your families and friends with the amazing and unique gifts that you will find in OEC!!!
Many blessings to you all, with love and gratitude, always.
Gretchen

11/03/2018

I’ll post updates soon, such as they are:) but meanwhile, this video by Historic Ellicott City By Air was beautifully done and captured a piece of my heart that escaped after the second flood, and I am grateful to have it back.

06/24/2018

I will post a follow up soon, but in the meantime, this suggested ad from FB made me laugh-cry. And was too good to pass up. To think that for a mere handful of dollars, they would help me out by getting this message to 65,000 people within a 2 mile radius. Just who, exactly is responsible for the ad recommendations?

06/16/2018

Well, each night I think about sitting down to write a follow up on my initial post, and each night I am too emotionally and mentally drained to find any words. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but I have found that even a million words cannot possibly convey the realities of what it feels like to stand amongst the ruins of a community. I’ve heard it over and over from the many amazing individuals who have come to our aid. Until you stand there with your own eyes, and see. Until you stand there in 6-12” of mud and debris and smell it. Until you spend hours shoveling and salvaging every bit and piece that can be saved. Until you actually look into the eyes of the person who has lost so much of their heart, there are no words that can create a picture vivid enough for you to comprehend the actual feeling of loss and despair. Our volunteers are as devastated as those of us whose lives have been irrevocably changed. They stand in stunned silence initially. And then, they rally. And then they go home and cry. I have had the blessings of so many amazing people who have stepped in and made it all bearable. I don’t dare spend a moment thinking about the end result. I am in survival mode. I react to what needs doing in the moment. If I stop to think, I will cry from gratitude, but may also choose to curl up under all the love sent out way, and never get up. My kids need me. My dogs need to check their Pee-Mail:) each morning. I need to save what can be saved of BH, and I also need to say good bye to a life I have lived and loved. Of course, BH was not my “life” nor was it all my heart, but it has been a huge part of my life, and a huge part of my heart, as well as my children’s. I worked two jobs for years to save for it. I worked years making less than my employees. I lived for a passion I didn’t even fully understand at the time, but learned was a desire to be connected to and of service to a community. We already miss everyone. We have adopted and been adopted by so many people we met through BH. People who come to my house every week through the summer and one who comes every Sunday for dinner. This is my family.
I’m not sure whether or not this is worse for the “first” timers or those of us going through it a second time. I saw Shelly from Miss Fit on the street in the first days, looking dazed. Her building is gone. Just about everything in it is gone. God love her. She’s been in town for a year and she gathered her crew of Misfits and organized to volunteer to help her neighbors. She is commUNITY. When you can’t seem to help yourself, help others, and you will find that you have helped yourself in the process of being of service to others.
This town is ECStrong-and to steal Rachel Rawling’s (Salon Marielle) words ECWronged. I have largely avoided the media this time. My experience from 2016 is that they either want you to bleed your loss on camera or spout the campaign mantra of . They will twist and cut your words to fit the message they want to convey. None of them wanted to address the real issue of flooding on Main. The politicians spent a lot of time in front of the cameras in 2016 spewing about 1000yr floods. Well 998 yrs early is well outside the statistical margin for error. Now, they are spouting a lot of pretty words to describe a stronger, smarter, EC which will still be a great place to visit. I’m sure it will be eventually, but don’t be fooled by flowery words. These words actually mean that they want to tear down whole sections of Main Street, including Bean Hollow, to make a river Walkway. The same buildings that had to go through painful processes to get the Historic Commission to approve a paint color.
They have done a good job of trying to spin these latest three floods as business as usual in E.C. , pointing out the history of floods over The last century. As if class 5 white water rapids flowing at 30-40miles an hour from the top of Main is the same as Patapsco River rising. It is not. They have stated that even if you removed the last yrs of development, it would only save a foot or two. 12” is the difference between complete destruction for so many, and survival. How many inches would have saved Eddison Hermond?
There was nothing that could have been done in the last two years to prevent what happened this May. Having said that, I find myself growing more and more resentful of the party line being hammered in during every photo op. Be honest.
I also want to explain our decision to leave, because we have so many people request that we reconsider and rebuild in our current location. Also, I do struggle with the feeling that I am abandoning ship, but also have no choice. Many people have contacted me to ask that we reconsider our decision to leave our current location. I know that prior to the flood of 2016, I was blissfully unaware of the realities of flooding. To be clear-there is no such thing as replacement cost flood insurance. You can’t buy it, or we would have had it. Income replacement does not take effect in a flood situation. I had that as well as every other insurance you can buy. Flood insurance is available to anyone bc the federal government provides it. They jacked my flood insurance from $3100 to $3900 after 2016. Everyone gets excited about FEMA stepping in. There is no money from County, State or Federal agencies for business owners in a flood situation. United Way wouldn’t even help us bc we didn’t lose our home in the actual flood. We argued successfully that we could still lose our home bc we lost our livelihood. They gave us half a mortgage payment. For many business owners on Main, it took everything we had to get back open after the first flood. The County patted themselves on the back about getting 90% of businesses back after the first flood. I literally said to the County in a meeting a month ago, regarding flood mitigation “You either pay now, or you pay later. And, next time you don’t get 90% of the businesses back, bc you got that as a result of the community chipping in and demanding it. It was the love of the community that brought OEC back. Not anything the county did.”
Most of us don’t have the ability to do it again a year after getting re-opened. My family went a year without income and this yr has been reduced income as we continued to repair behind the scenes. We can’t do it again in OEC. Please understand that we wish, more than anybody, that we could. But we do not have the funds to do so, especially knowing the next flood could happen at anytime.
We have had several exciting opportunities proposed to us in the surrounding area which we will focus on exploring in the next several weeks. I grew up in Catonsville and have been a part of this community for 36yrs. So, this is were I prefer to rebuild, and Catonsville has been a huge part of the OEC community.
If you are so inclined, we really could use your help to move forward with not only rebuilding in the area(above flood zone:) but also to help us maintain the daily struggles of providing a sense of “normal” for our children. This is an awkward position for me to be in and I am struggling badly with the reality of needing to ask this time. I can’t even come up with a thousand words to describe how I want to instantaneously combust with those words. But we do have a go fund me page.
Bless all of you with so much gratitude.
Several people have already asked about the gofund me-gofundme has eliminated the costs that they had two years ago when my sister chose to set up youcaring instead. I am a luddite-if you type in Bean Hollow, Ellicott City, we are there. Thank you again. Our community continues to render me speechless and stunned with love. I really can't stop to absorb it all bc I just want to curl up in it like a warm blanket and stay there until the world is all better:)We promise to continue to pay forward your kindness, as we have always endeavored to do. Xo

06/01/2018

Everybody riding the PTSD rollercoaster with me for yesterday’s flood alerts? 🙂 Well, today is a new day, so we are going to once again don the work overalls that I have decided are my signature look, although they are looking a little worse for wear after daily washings. I’ve been joking that I am going to raise money by creating really expensive overalls perfectly stained to look like you’ve been ravaged by a flood twice and liked it:) If people are willing to spend $150 dollars on jeans that have pre-made holes in them, I might be able to make it work. We made a lot of progress on the “to do” list yesterday and I’m trying to keep breathing through the anxiety as each item completed leads to two more things that need to be done, but as always, one step and one breath at a time. It was wonderful to have my bean counters (My mom and my adopted mom, Judy) come and roll salvaged coins and flatten freshly washed money. Yes, the seedy underbelly of the life of flood victims. Bet you didn’t know we are money launderers. 😊.
Weather permitting, we will be allowed back in tonight for more salvage, but they are calling for more storms and, well, sigh.
I’m going to attemp to post some pictures from after the first flood, after rebuild and after the second flood. It was strange to take pictures of the pictures on the wall depicting the images from the 2016 flood, while standing in the muck and destruction of the flood of 2018. The last picture is of the floor-or lack of floor in poor Sally’s Discoveries. To see all of her beautiful merchandise and know that all the hard work, and all the blood sweat and tears that she sacrificed to come back, is just utterly gone is heartbreaking. She has the unenviable position of being a merchant and resident who has lost her livilhood, her home and her car for the second time in two years, so I will not cry for me right now.
Thank you all for being here with me and making sure I don’t fall when I feel I can’t hold on. Much love and gratitude -as always!!

05/31/2018

Well, here I am once again, fingers hovering frozen over the keyboard awaiting commands from my brain. Now that I have started typing, I fear this post may be long bc I really don't know where to start. My emotions and thoughts are swinging so wildly, and are so absurd that for some reason Miley Cyrus straddling her wrecking ball comes to mind. I did say absurd:) I am beyond the ability to articulate eloquently at this point. I am surrounded by the scent of mold and muck. We live in Catonsville which got more rain than E.C. We still have water in our basement. The warehouse space we rented a half mile up from BH in January, with plans to open a roasting facility outside the retail location as a way to protect us from losing our house if another flood happened, took on 20.5" of water. We literally just moved the roaster that got flooded in 2016 to that space on Friday. BH...I can't even go there just yet. I have mucky coins in my sink and mucky cash in my washer which means the dishes and the laundry are piling up. My living room is filling with salvage. We have to manage payroll, unemployment, health insurance, flood insurance, sales tax, and cancel all our contracts from Muzac, Pest control, alarm company, workmans comp, etc. in between gaining access to the shop at a moments notice. I come home filthy, exhausted on every level and heartbroken for all the merchants and residents. I am full up with the pain and fear I have absorbed from everyone I have hugged each day, but my 9yr old needs me to listen intently as he describes his hair care regimen that includes three kinds of shampoo so his hair sticks up in just the right place. He looks like a Bad News Bear child at best, and a homeless child usually, so if that's the look he's going for, he's right on the money:) My 13yr old is struggling to process this loss again but he has baseball, and end of year soccer stuff and end of year school stuff that needs navigating. He was placed in a car seat on a BH table from the age of 7 days old, and grew up there as our family grew to include our customers whom we adopted or adopted us. They both need normal. I am struggling so much to describe this experience. It's been easier to deal with from the stand point that we know what to expect. The flood of 2016 was filled with so many questions and the not knowing was torture. We thought we had imagined the worst only to discover that the worst was so much closer to hell than we could fathom. We knew what we were getting this time. Sadly? Fortunately? or Unfortunately? Which word to use when describing how the County has streamlined this process because they are now pros concerning flood disaster. I know that during the flood of 2016, I allowed my fear to manifest itself in the form of rage that needed an outlet and poor Mr. Kittleman absorbed an earful from me, and somehow managed to take it and still hug me when he saw me:) A lot of people want to be critical about the flood mitigation that did or didn't happen since 2016. There was literally nothing that could have been done in the last two years to undo decades of unrestrained development allowed by planning and zoning combined with the amount of rain we received, other than to close the street down for over a year to put in piping under the streets. Everyone wanted that and no one wanted that. Everyone wanted to be back up and running as soon as possible. In retrospect, my honest opinion is that the County may have to consider that option more seriously this time, in addition to putting more restrictions on development as well as requiring developers to do more in the form of flood mitigation, eco friendly development plans and materials, etc. It is my opinion that we have been so fortunate to have Alan Kittleman, Jon Weinstein and Robert Flanagan with us over the last several years. I don't normally post political opinion ever and in 16yrs of business have never posted a political sign in my window, but I did for Jon Weinstein. I digress. I told you there is a lot going on in this head and heart right now, and it's all been swirling around for three days now. So, if you're still reading, I have more to babble:)
We were so grateful to be able to get in yesterday and today, with the expectation of being able to get back in each day if the weather holds. How surreal to have men and women in hard hats approach and reintroduce themselves from the last flood. But, the devastation to our community escapes my ability to describe. I am really struggling to describe what it feels like, while I am trying to imagine what it feels like to be Sally from Discoveries, right next door. While we desperately worked to remove coffee bins and whatever was above the flood line while having our boots sucked off our feet in the ankle deep mud, those men in hard hats were assessing her building to determine if it would be demolished, ultimately making a decision about whether or not she would lose her home and her business. Her life's work. I can't find words. I watched the video of my friend/neighbor on the other side, Joan Eve being carried by Gary through raging flood water waist high to escape Joan Eve's. She couldn't walk well because she had stress fractures from moving all her stuff out the weekend before because of the threat of a flood, and moving it all back in in time for Memorial Day weekend. Shoemakers, Horse Spirit, and several others did the same. This was our new normal. I tamp down the horror I feel just thinking about how close Joan and Gary came to death. Not thinking about it. Not thinking about it.
I am heartbroken to be ripped from this town, this community, and a huge chunk of my heart, yet again. It's been a difficult 2 years for me and my husband. We lost a year of primary income to rebuild and were just starting to get back to rights. I still have a framed photo of a cow on my wall because I bought it before the first flood and haven't had time to print out a photo of one of my children, or at least an animal I know personally. We struggled to rebuild and then struggled to find our feet again while living with a constant level of fear and anxiety. Through all the love and gratitude, I have still really struggled this year emotionally. Every rainfall, every radar image of a storm, every gathering of clouds was a trigger. I employ 17 young adults who are someone else's children. The BH 911 call from the flood of 2016 was described by the 911 operator as the worst of all the calls she took that night. Listening to it was devastating to me. I never got over it, and just typing this makes me cry. I really can't live with this level of fear and anxiety anymore. We were able to rebuild the first time because the community bridged the gap between flood insurance and actual cost, and because we were supported by so much love from all of you and the determination born from all the love we have for you, our fellow merchants, residents and the our community that extends all across the continents. After a lot of soul searching and a lot of heartbreak, we feel that as badly as we want to come back, we cannot in good conscience rebuild in E.C. I'd never forgive myself if anything happened to one of my staff as a result of a flood, and there is nothing that can be done to fix the flood problem in the near future. We do plan to rebuild somewhere in Catonsville if we can find a suitable location that will allow a roaster. We have also considered Columbia, but I grew up in Catonsville and have a strong love and connection to this place I call home, so we are hoping:) We will be back!! We have no doubt about that. We just need to find some higher ground to settle onto while we sip great coffee with amazing people. Good night-with love and gratitude-I'll post pictures tomorrow bc they are on my phone and I am now too tired to figure out how to get them from my phone to this computer-sigh.