After a car crashed through the front door and brick wall of a Freeland business last week, the South Whidbey community has rallied to support the owner in her time of need.
Noel Nic’Fergusson was standing behind the register Thursday afternoon in Wild Birds Unlimited when the blue Subaru entered the building.
“Shocking is not even a word anymore,” Nic’Fergusson said Monday while recounting the incident.
South Whidbey Fire/EMS responded to the Van Barr Place shopping mall around 3:40 p.m. on Dec. 4, according to Fire Chief Nick Walsh. It appeared that an elderly woman accidentally drove through the building, hitting a water pipe that caused flooding within the business, Walsh said. Fortunately, there were no injuries.
“Like a fire hose, it was just pouring in and nobody knew where the valve was,” Nic’Fergusson said.
John Norris, a Clinton resident who happened to be in a different store at the time of the incident, felt the whole building shake. He ran over and helped the driver out of the car. He then went over to a nearby lumber store to buy sheets of plywood and called on some friends to help patch up the hole in the damaged entryway.
Nic’Fergusson remains impressed by the volunteers who stepped up. Along with first responders, they helped get all the water out of the store and stuck around to offer more assistance so that Wild Birds Unlimited was able to successfully reopen on Saturday morning. Products untouched by the flood but with wet packaging were sold at a steep discount, and none remained by the end of the weekend. Although, Nic’Fergusson acknowledged some merchandise was lost because it was too water-logged or damaged to sell.
Like any optimist would, Nic’Fergusson is working to find humor in the situation. An employee’s husband offered to paint the plywood covering the gaping hole in the side of the building, and she made a joke about a fake door. The painter created an optical illusion with a brick wall and a fake door with a sign that reads “please use other door.”
“We had some fun with the face of our building,” Nic’Fergusson said. “People are now going by and saying, ‘I thought they had an accident?’”
A pile of bricks out front, however, reminds people not to forget what happened.
