Flooding caused by an historic amount of rainfall in the St. Louis area forced a plastic pallet maker to close.
Cabka NV officials were in a bit of a holding pattern July 26 as they waited for the rain and waters to subside so they can gain access to the facility to assess the damage to the company's Hazelwood, Mo., plant.
"What's important is all the staff is safe and there are no injuries. It's only the plant itself," said David Brilleslijper, investor and press contact for the Amsterdam-based company, in a phone interview from Europe.
The spokesman said he had limited knowledge of the situation, due to his distance from St. Louis, as matters continued to unfold Tuesday. There is no damage estimate yet.
Cabka reported staff members in Hazelwood "were able to leave the premises unharmed" Tuesday morning as exceptionally heavy rain hit the St. Louis area.
Cabka said the Hazelwood facility represents about 15 percent of the company total capacity. But the firm indicated it recycles 150 kilotons of plastics into about 10 million pallets and 200,000 large containers each year. The firm has 700 workers in Europe and the United States.
A tweet from the National Weather Service in St. Louis indicated that through 7 a.m. local time on July 26, 8.06 inches of rain had been measured at the St. Louis airport "which breaks the all time daily rainfall record from August 20, 1915 of 6.85," which came from remnants of the Galveston 1915 Hurricane.
Another post at about noon indicated the area was expecting another ¼ to 1 inch of rain before storms largely ending between 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. local time.
"Like most places in the Greater St. Louis area, there was flooding near our plant. So we had to close down the plant. Now we just wait until weather gets a bit better and we can assess what's exactly happened," Brilleslijper said. "It's way to early to tell. … We have to wait until the weather improves and the rain stops."