The struggle to stay afloat

Barry Sinewitz knew the rain was coming but was hoping the weather predictions were wrong. But on Sunday morning, after he lined the foundation of his Peabody Square business with sandbags, he realized it was too late. By midmorning, Peabody Square had turned into a gully, and a foot of water was rising inside the Thriftco Speedi Print Center.

Sinewitz, 45, went home to his wife and two children, and slept for two hours. ''I woke up, and then I said this is real, and I started to get that sick feeling in my stomach," he said.

At 6 a.m. on Monday, Sinewitz stood in 2 feet of water in his parking lot off Lowell Street as he prepared to pump out the building. With the waterline above the sandbags, which had blocked the doors, he grabbed a hammer and smashed one of the front windows, lowered a drain hose into his shop, and started the gas-powered pump.

For the next 10 hours, water flowed out of the building as Sinewitz shouted out directions to his co-workers during a driving rain.

''Somehow, I'm going to make it," he said as he sloshed through the parking lot, adjusting one of the pumps. ''It's just devastating. Your whole life you work hard, and then you get wiped out like this."

By Tuesday afternoon, Sinewitz was back inside the blue cinderblock building that he rents. Most of the water was gone, but dampness hung in the air, and mud lined the walls.

Sinewitz has been in this line of work since he was 12, when he first came to his father's print shop on Main Street in Peabody Square. After getting a bachelor's degree in graphic arts from Rochester Institute of Technology, he returned to his hometown to work with his dad, and took over the business more than 15 years ago. Since then, Thriftco has expanded and moved twice -- most recently to the 2,000-square-foot building alongside one of the brooks that flow past, and periodically flood, downtown Peabody.

This was his first flood, and Sinewitz was trying not to panic. He was waiting for the insurance adjuster to arrive, and trying to figure out what worked and what was broken. While he has no flood insurance, he had hopes that since the roof had leaked and the toilets had backed up, there might be some coverage.

Since he had saved copies of all of his computerized printing projects, he had been able to send them to other shops to have the work done. However, at least a dozen electronic printing and copy machines had been damaged. Water was still in several of the machines; fans blew air on circuit boards throughout the shop; the computers were no longer usable; just one phone line worked. His young children, Jared and Aimee, steered vacuums as his wife, Donna, tested the office equipment.

''That was not a good call," said Sinewitz as he motioned toward a now-nonfunctional $20,000 digital color copier in the center of the room. Sinewitz had learned that the power supply, which was still wet, might have damaged the rest of the machine.

There were other broken machines, including a $40,000 computer-to-plate printing system and a new paper-folding machine that he had yet to use.

Outside, he stood next to a stack of soggy boxes, cartons, and reams of paper that formed a garbage pile, and voiced his resolve to get his shop back in order.

''One by one, we'll get the machines going," he said.

Steven Rosenberg can be reached at rosenberg@globe.com.