Floods in UAE: Fujairah small businesses lose nearly $54,449 worth of stock

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Employees at several small businesses in Fujairah have been pushing hard to return to normalcy, cleaning up stores affected by recent floods.

Many have been attempting to salvage whatever they can from their shops, with several hundreds of thousands of dirhams' worth of flood-damaged stock being dumped.

Al Madeena Food Stuff, a supermarket located at the Irani market in Fujairah, incurred a loss of nearly Dhs 200,000. The employees at the supermarket have been clearing the affected inventory for the last three days, and they believe that it will take another six days to get back to normal.

"All we could do is throw our stuff as most of it is perishable stock," said Farman Ali, the operations manager at the supermarket.

"We have saved nearly 30 per cent of our stock and as it was stored a bit hit higher than the water level," added Ali.

When it rained heavily, the employees expected that the store might have been submerged in water.

"We rushed to the store the same night as we had stocked the goods to their full capacity the same day," said Ali.

The grocery supplies store starts stocking their inventory every 20th of the month, and stocks last until the 27th.

"We even had stocks piled up outside our store that day as we planned to shift the stock to the warehouse," said Ali.

From the 28th of every month, "We deliver commodities in wholesale to many households in and around the city, as people receive their salary."

Most of the goods were either dissolved in water or swept away by the floods. "Items like wheat, soaps, home cleaning agents, oil, etc., were dissolved in water," said Ali.

Ali added that they would be renovating their store as they have noticed damage to the building and racks where they store their goods.

"We will be removing everything from the shop and have scheduled renovation next week after washing the surfaces. It will definitely be difficult for us to get back to normal business," said Ali.

The goods like tissues are kept for drying and will be sold later at a lower price.

Apart from the loss in the store, "we lost goods in the trucks that were about to reach the warehouse. Our driver, helper, and purchase executive were in the truck and remained there for nearly 36 hours," added Ali.

Another small business establishment, a sports shop, is doing its best to return to normalcy at the earliest despite losing tons of inventory worth nearly Dhs 50,000.

"These machines here are worth nearly Dh2,000 to 3,000, and it is now a non-functional showpiece," said Mohammed Rafiq, owner of Alo Shabab Sports Centre near the Corniche area.

Rafiq said the water level subsided on the fourth day of rain, which is when they got the opportunity to calculate their losses.

"We lost nearly 40 per cent of our goods from shoes to many sports items to clothing. These products cannot be used or sold," added Rafiq. They even lost furniture and racks at the shop, which will cost them nearly Dh5,000 to repair.