With thousands of basements in Iowa either flooded or wet, sump pump sales are soaring. The "Farm and Home" store in Creston received a fresh shipment of sump pumps on Monday, after being sold out this weekend as Creston residents dealt with the after-effects of nine inches of rain in the past week.
Store manager Jeff Mostek says as more and more of the state gets flooded, it’s harder to get sump pumps from the manufacturers. "We’re trying to get them to rush things and they’re doing the best they can to get them out, but a lot of the Midwest is in the same situation we are, so the demand is great and it’s hard to get things in a timely fashion right now," he says.
Staff at the Farm and Home Supply in Creston stayed after hours to sell sump pumps as the Tuesday night storm kept dumping rain and residents kept dealing with their wet basements. "My last customer was about 2:20 in the morning on Wednesday," Mostek says. His store sold over 60 sump pumps in just two days. "There (were) 38 that we had on hand," he says. "We’d just gotten our order the Friday before and sold all those and then we got 11 from our Mt. Ayr store and then next day we got another 12 from Des Moines."
Mostek can’t keep dehumidifiers in stock, either. "We got, what, 10 in and they were gone and I’ve got 16 more that are supposed to be here Wednesday," Mostek says. His store is sold out of shop vacs, too. "We started Wednesday with 44 and at the end of the day we had three left," Mostek says. "I’ve got more of those ordered. They’re all gone."
The store is also running short on hoses and clamps for pumps, as well as box fans.