BRECKENRIDGE, Texas (KTAB/KRBC) — A Breckenridge restaurant owner says flooding has been detrimental to her business, and that the city isn’t doing enough to minimize the risk in her area.

Restaurant owner Mary Couger of Sissy’s says was able to keep her business afloat after a flood in 2016. 

“We were shut down for six weeks and we came in to rebuild the whole thing on the inside,” says Couger.

Although Couger initially knew the area was a flood zone, she says booming business kept her there.  

“I just hate to lose everything. I have a lot of other stuff going on too, which is not good. So, this just makes it twice as hard,” Couger says.  

Five years later her restaurant has flooded again, but this time she believes it’s due to the city’s new reverse-osmosis plant.

“I could sustain a flood maybe every 15 years, but I can’t every 5 years,” says Couger.   

Couger says after the new plant was built, her location turned into a drainage ditch.  

“It’s basically created a dam, which forces the water right on top of me,” she says.   

However, some other Breckenridge businesses who are also in the flood zone say that the plant has nothing to do with the flooding.  

“It has to do with that over there rising up, and it comes this way,” says convenience store worker, Christy Gray, talking about Gunsolus Creek.  

“Lake Daniels is a runoff, and what happens is it fills up and if we get a lot of rain, then we flood,” Gray says. “It affects us, but we just manage with it. We clean it up, we deal with it, and we go on about our day when it happens.”  

Couger says she thinks the City of Breckenridge isn’t doing all they can to minimize the risk of floods in her area.  

“They’re not going to do nothing for me, I’d be surprised if they would. I would take the help, of course,” says Couger.

City of Breckenridge officials say they’re not allowing businesses to expand in the flood zone area, nor will they be allowing new businesses to open there, in efforts to avoid the risk of further property damage.