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  17th Street's flagship store close to the beach in Virginia Beach - Photo courtesy of 17th Street

A tornado hit the flagship beach location for important industry account 17th Street Surf Shop in Virginia Beach last week.

Luckily, nobody was hurt but the store was damaged.

This morning, owner Tom Brown sent out this update to the industry.

From Tom Brown, 17th Street

“Dear Friends,

“I have some good news about the tornado that hit our beach store last Thursday afternoon. Every one of our employees that worked that day was spared any injuries. The store managers quickly moved all the customers to our back rooms and no one was injured inside the store.

“The people who were injured outside our store where escorted inside and where quickly treated by our city’s emergency services. Everyone did an excellent job, from our managers on duty to the city’s first responders.

“Our operation manager and director of stores were on site in minutes to assess the damage and start the clean up. The tornado blew out our 65-foot upper window and lower side window facing 17th Street. Flying debris compromised the large window on the other side of the store.

“We lost a few trees and had a little brick damage. The sign that is usually on the side of our store was found on a street 150 yards away. We were very lucky to have no injuries and sustain this type of damage.

“The executive team had people working through the night Thursday to board up the store. The city inspectors allowed us in the store that night to start the clean up. The power company worked all night and restored power to the building by Friday morning. Our employee’s spent Friday cleaning the inside of the store for a city inspection on Saturday morning.

“The city inspector worked early Saturday to approve our building and we opened for business on Saturday at 10 a.m.

“The store ended up beating last year sales that day. We received many compliments from our customers about the professionalism of our store employees during the storm.

“I share this good news with you for many reasons. We wanted to thank you for reaching out to us with your prayers, generosity and offers of support. We are very proud of our beach store sales associates, managers, and central office executives. Our city officials and employees where amazing at getting our services back online quickly.

“I have attached a before and after picture so you can see the transformation that happened in a day and a half. We feel very fortunate and blessed to be safe, healthy and doing business on the corner of 17th Street in Virginia Beach.

“We want to thank our loyal customers, vendors and city officials for their constant support.  Have a great summer, and thanks.”

Tom Brown