It’s the amazing story of survival for one Houston Starbucks in Meyerland -- a store that was back on its feet serving up hot cups of coffee just days after Hurricane Harvey surrounded it with several feet of water.
In a world that’s not just rebuilding, but basically redesigning life after Harvey, there’s a small store on a little corner lot that just may have it already figured out.
“We had to design a store that was going to be flood-proof," said Marc Boucher, Principal with Boucher Design Group.
Sitting out on the patio, Starbucks cup in hand, Boucher spills the secrets that lie within the walls.
“They hired us to design a small, drive-thru, 700-square-foot Starbucks store," Boucher said. “We built a wall around, creating basically a moat."
He says the issue in the beginning blueprints was the lack of space in relation to the floodplain, because, well, it is Meyerland.
“The best use of the site was to raise it a little, but not put it on stilts or a podium," said Project Designer Garrett DeLano with Boucher Design Group.
DeLano says with the drive-thru and need for customer service, the only real option they had -- one he’s never done before -- was to somehow make the store virtually waterproof.
And to do that, he's found there’s two parts. The first part is in the walls.
“It has a CMU block wall with a rubber coating exterior, so it’s like a pool," Boucher said.
It’s basically a wall made of concrete, and on top of that, there's a rubber coating.
“That allowed us to thin set a thin brick on top of that membrane which created a watertight seal around the perimeter of the building," DeLano said.
The second part was the every day, ordinary looking black metal doors -- they’re anything but.
“The flood doors were more expensive, but they create a watertight seal around the perimeter and across the bottom of the door," DeLano said.
At $10,000 dollars apiece, the store stuck only three of them on the outside.
“They’ve more than paid for themselves," DeLano said.
And they were open for less than a year, when in comes Harvey -- the real test for the one-of-a-kind design.
“I was worried about the site a little bit," DeLano said.
Today, five months down the road, so many of their neighbors are still picking up the pieces, but this Starbucks was back open and brewing just days after the water receded.
“They determined there was virtually no damage. Pretty incredible," DeLano said.