CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Jamal Boustany says around 12 to 15 inches of standing water is now soaking through the floor of his Capitol Convenience Store basement.
This comes after a West Virginia American Water main burst in downtown Charleston Sunday near the intersection of Capitol and Lee Street, flooding parts of both streets and into local adjacent businesses.
It happened amid the ongoing flooding simultaneously taking place in Kanawha and about a dozen other counties from a storm that hit Saturday night that brought up to 4.5 inches of rainfall in some areas, as well as the oncoming snowfall that hit subsequently after. 
Boustany said water just kept seeping into his store, that sits directly on the corner of Capitol Street where the incident occurred.
“The water came in through the door, the back door, it covered all of the store,” he said.
He said the now waterlogged carpet in his store got particularly damaged and is going to have to be replaced.
“The water was thick, like four inches here, now it has all gone to the basement, but it’s still underneath the carpet so we must take this carpet out,” Boustany said.
Charleston Mayor Amy Shuler Goodwin came on 580 Live the following morning on Monday. She said they are still looking into the cause of the incident.
“We still don’t know why it burst, but it was, we believe, a 12 inch water main, so that’s a lot, a lot of water,” she said.
She said the line floated back down toward Capitol Street pumping more water out than the drain could handle.
Boustany said he was at the store Sunday when the incident initially occurred.
He said it happened all of a sudden, but then it just kept coming and coming.
“It happened so quick and then started flooding all over, and bam, the water just kept coming in here for like three, four, five hours until they fixed it,” said Boustany.
Delfine’s Jewelry store that sits right beside Capitol Convenience on Capitol Street received similar amounts of damage.
Capitol Convenience Store and Delfine’s Jewelry
Vice President of Delfine’s Jewelry Megan Delfine said it got so bad they are having to close down shop for a few days to get the water-drenched floor of their store cleaned up, which she said they are hoping to be back open by Wednesday but now the process might take even longer.
She also said the water came in fast, but getting it to stop took way more time.
“It’s pretty bad, we had two foot of water in our basement, two inches of water on our main floor,” she said. “When me and my husband heard about the water main break, we were here within ten minutes, but unfortunately, it took three hours for the water company to show up and turn off the water.”
Delfine said she doesn’t think the damage would have been as extensive had the water gotten shut off in a more timely manner.
She said it wasn’t a good feeling to watch their store get flooded and not be able to do anything about it.
“We watched the water rise, we watched our store flood, and we just waited there until someone came and turned off the water,” she said. “Once they turned off the water, it receded pretty quickly, but the damage had already been done.”
Boustany said his store has been on Capitol Street for three years now and nothing like this had ever happened, or prior to that when he had a store over on Summers Street for 35 years.
However, Delfine said otherwise.
She said they have had their jewelry store on Capitol for almost 50 years now and this makes the fourth time it has flooded.
“I think it was about in 2000 the last time a water main broke and flooded us this badly, but unfortunately, it is something we have become accustomed to,” said Delfine.
Goodwin said they had 27 crew members out on Sunday across different parts of the city cleaning up storm debris from the flooding, and on Monday morning crews were out salting and scraping the roads from Sunday night’s snow showers.
She said the city was really going to start assisting with the clean up process on Capitol Street Monday evening.
Goodwin said it has already been a tough year weather-wise, between snow storms and flooding, and she asks everyone to be patient as city crews work hard to clean everything up.
“They’re doing it, they do it with gusto, they take pride in their jobs, and I promise you, they’re working as hard and as fast as they possibly can,” Goodwin said.
American Water said in a statement that they repaired the water main break on Capitol Street and restored water service to their customers at approximately 7 a.m. Monday morning. They said they are now working to find a cause of the break.
“At this time, our crew has not determined the cause of the main break. Our main priority was to repair the main break as quickly as possible while maintaining safety to restore service to our customers and mitigate any issues.”
“We understand the water main break presented a difficult situation for our customers. Whenever main breaks occur, our team works as quickly as possible while maintaining all safety protocols, and in all weather conditions, to make the necessary repairs and restore service to our customers.”