Open for three weeks before flooding, gym owners say they are now building resilience

More than a month after Auckland’s January floods, highly affected businesses in the suburb of Brown’s Bay are slowly starting to get back on their feet.

Jon and Livi Kitson-Clark saw their dream business under deep layers of mud, only four weeks after opening.

The young couple own a gym on Beach Road, and the paint on the wall was still fresh when the floods took over the business, damaging the facility and forcing it to close its doors soon after the grand opening.

“We were only open up for three weeks,” Jon Kitson-Clark said.

“And for my wife and I this has been a two-year dream. We finally had the opportunity to bring our passion to life.”

The heavy rain on Auckland Anniversary weekend affected hundreds of businesses in the region.

“When the flood came that night, we thought the gym would be all right, but when we got there the next day, we just could not believe it,” Kitson-Clark said.

“Words cannot even describe it, I felt like my world just disappeared.”

The gym was covered in mud after floodwaters came through.
Photo: Supplied / Liv-On LifeStyle

Kitson-Clark said the gym took a big hit, with debris from other businesses pushed against the main door. Inside, water and mud damaged all new equipment and facilities.

“You could see as soon as we got there, there was ovens, car front bumpers, kitchen bits. All just piled up floating on shoulder high water in front of the gym.

“I just sunk to my knees, how on Earth do you come back from this?”

Hundreds of volunteers across the region gathered to help households and businesses hardly hit by the floods.

Kitson-Clark said the community made all the difference in order to keep the business going.

“We had gym members turn up, we had families, friends, we had local businesses come by, we had volunteers. Everyone came together.”

Debris piled up outside Liv-On LifeStyle gym.
Photo: Supplied / Liv-On LifeStyle

‘How do we get be back up and running?’

Insurance Council of New Zealand said the number of claims received following the 27 January flooding, across house, motor, contents and commercial insurance, was around 20,000, but the number could be higher after Cyclone Gabrielle.

Kitson-Clark said in his case, an assessment was done quicker than he thought.

“We put the claim through the process and within like four or five days the loss adjuster came and saw the damage.

“Two weeks later, we had pretty much the whole process done and the money through”, he said.

In February, the government announced a $5 million support package for flood affected Auckland businesses.

The couple had brand new equipment damaged in the flooding.
Photo: Supplied / Liv-On LifeStyle

Livi Kitson-Clark said they have applied for it but have not had access to the money just yet.

“There’s been a bit of a delay because we had to open an account with our business name to be able to be eligible for the fund, but it took ages to get an appointment with the bank.

“It has been a long process, but we haven’t received the money yet,” Livi Kitson-Clark said.

Jon Kitson-Clark said the biggest challenge during the process was looking after their mental health.

“It was a very hard battle. How do we get be back up and running? There was no timeframe because we had to wait for contractors, suppliers, and all the gear to turn up, parts to be replaced.”

“You worked super hard for ages, so to bounce back up from scratch was hard on us.”

On Saturday, the gym will be hosting an event to celebrate its re-opening and hundreds of people were expected to attend.

For the Kitson-Clarks, it was about never giving up.

“If you believe in something so much that you want it to be successful, then never give up or let things you can’t control take you down,” Livi Kitson-Clark said.

“Sometimes it’s easy to give up on things after such damage.”