WAYNESVILLE, NC (WLOS) — Hurricane Helene flooded Richland Creek in Waynesville, causing water to overflow into the Waynesville Plaza shopping center, affecting several businesses.

The market recovery is ongoing as they seek financial assistance.

Businesses at one end of Waynesville Plaza were hit the hardest.

At All About Fitness, manager Mike Simonson says Helene filled the building with three inches of water and mud.

“He came and walked to the back door,” Simonson said. “I had mud everywhere. The tiles on the floor were so bad they started to warp.”

The muddy wet mess shorted out the lights and more.

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“A lot of equipment was connected and shorted out. So, I lost two treadmills and an elliptical and a stair climber. (It looked good, we’re pretty well cooked,” Simonson said.

With no flood insurance and a high price for a professional cleaning service, All About Fitness relied on itself and about a dozen of its gym members.

“I came here, got some dryers — industrial dryers — and worked on it for three days,” he said. I went in, I cleaned, I cleaned. I took out the whole floor.”

He says the gym passed the county mold inspection and was able to reopen after six days. But a 24-hour gym that was closed for six days meant more members left.

Simonson said it was originally about 125 members. He says they are 40% of the gym’s patrons, but some are just now coming back and some new members are joining.

The message now is that they are open for business.

“We want to get the word out,” Simonson said.

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The objective is to bring back lost revenue as quickly as possible.

“We were hoping to get help from FEMA. I haven’t heard back from them yet. The owner — we haven’t heard what they’re going to do,” Simonson said.

The gym also launched a GoFundMe page to help.

The nearby Smoky Mountain Cinema was also damaged.

“Servpro came in and we moved away. It cost quite a lot. It’s about 20 grand,” owner Greg Israel said.

He says they were able to reopen in about two weeks. Israel says structural damage was minimal. But he says that because of the flooding, he lost $100,000 in equipment and that he, too, is looking for financial help.

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“I understand there will be some grants from a few sources, and hopefully we’ll qualify for one of those,” Israel said.

Back at the gym, Simonson knows that the units in the mall are experiencing varying degrees of damage.

“We have several businesses in this mall that were probably worse off than us,” he said.

Business owners in the plaza say what they need more than anything right now to recoup their upfront costs is cash on hand.