Paul Badley hopes to reopen his auto glass repair shop within the next month.
The Speedy Auto Glass franchise owner told MidlandToday he is currently scouting a location that might work for his operation.
Badley explained that while he wasn’t there last Wednesday morning when a fire and subsequent explosion destroyed his building and caused significant damage to the adjacent Victory Lube location, he’s just relieved his two employees Garth Noye and Tyler Turner weren’t hurt.
“For me, it's all about public safety and the safety of the people in the building,” Badley says. “ A business can be rebuilt or replaced.”
Badley says that when he learned that something was amiss, he quickly hopped in his vehicle and drove the 15 minutes from his Tiny Township home to the Speedy Auto Glass location just off County Road 93.
“I couldn’t get a hold of Garth for the first 10 minutes and that was probably the worst 10 minutes of my life. And then he finally phoned me, I gave a big sigh of relief.”
And while his two employees are temporarily without a place to work, Badley says he hopes to pay them their regular wages through his business interruption insurance.
“I'm hoping I'm going to be able to pay them there,” he says. “Get them their wages until we get up and running again. That's my goal.”
Calls to Victory Lube’s head office in Sudbury weren’t returned in time for publication.
There’s also a Midas outlet in the area that's just off the corner of Yonge Street and County Road 93. Calls to the Midas location weren't returned in time for publication, but a message tells customers the site is now closed.
“We are uncertain at this point in time when the site will be cleared to reopen,” the message says, noting they’re contacting customers in the interim.
“It appears that it won’t be reopened anytime before Monday of next week. I apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused, but all the circumstances were totally out of my control.”
As for Badley, besides trying to find a new location that he can move into quickly, he’s also spent the time since the incident speaking with insurance adjusters, Enbridge Gas inspectors, structural engineers and investigators from the Office of the Fire Marshal (OFM).
OFM investigators have concluded their onsite investigation into the fire and explosion Sunday after arriving Wednesday. However, the investigation remains ongoing, according to an OFM spokesman.
No one died as a result of the Wednesday morning fire and subsequent explosion, but one person was injured, according to Southern Georgian Bay OPP Insp. Joseph Evans.
Shortly after the incident as firefighters from Midland and Penetanguishene doused the blaze, Evans said they suspect the fire may have started from a gas leak and that the explosions were caused by propane tanks exploding in the small commercial plaza that's home to three vehicle repair shops.
And while the OFM isn’t providing any indication that might be the case, Badley has his own theory.
“I’ve learned from different sources that the explosions happened on the Victory Lube side and then spread to my side,” he says.
Badley says that his building took the brunt of it because of the way the shop is designed with a large open bay compared to Victory Lube, which has single bays separated by walls.
“So they have way more support than I do,” he says, noting the open concept of his location meant the roof had nothing to sit on once the fire took hold.
Badley says he doesn’t know whether there was a gas leak.
“I was told by the fire marshal that gas rises and sits on up at the ceiling height,” he says, noting the explosion could have been triggered by the simple act of switching on a light or turning on a heater.
While Noye was already at work, Turner hadn’t yet arrived.
“We're a glass shop so we don't have flammable things,” he says, pointing out the most explosive item in the shop would likely be a can of glass cleaner.
“We don't do anything, but swap out windshields.”
And this won’t be the first time Badley has moved his franchise.
When he first set up shop locally in 2017, the franchise was located in the old Ford dealership building just off King Street in Midland.
Badley says the new building he's considering wouldn’t require a lot of work to bring it up to Speedy Auto Glass standards.
“I was there last Thursday and looked at the location and it would work for us just fine,” he says. “We'll have to see what kind of temporary lease agreement we can come up with.
“There's a few things we have to do and then I have to get equipped again with the computer system and specific tools that we need for changing windshields and stuff like that,” Badley explains.
“So hopefully we’ll be back up and running within a month. That would be nice.”
Badley says he will have to fund the new equipment purchases himself until his insurance kicks in. He’s also hoping to get some help from Speedy’s head office.
“I had a good chat with head office and told them what my intentions were. So I'm pretty sure they're going to help me out to get up and running.”
