It was "one of those things," said Pat McKibbin, the owner of Mary's Marvelous in East Hampton, speaking of a flood in the kitchen on the afternoon of July 27 that resembled "a miniature of Niagara Falls."
It was a Tuesday, a day when the gourmet takeout spot is closed, but also the day when a cook comes in to make the week's falafel batter.
Mr. McKibbin got a panicked phone call from the cook. She'd left the shop through the emergency exit and forgotten to hit the crash bar on her way out, she told him, so it locked behind her, and meanwhile she'd left the triple sink running, with water going full blast and filled with soap.
Her keys and phone were inside the locked store. A good Samaritan helped the employee call the owner. Two village police officers had to wait until he arrived to get inside. When they did, Mr. McKibbin said, "You could have put a tiny boat, a Maid of the Mist, in there."
"We have good water pressure," he said, laughing. The water was "savage, raging from the eight-foot sink when they opened the back door."
The water covered the officers' shoes, he said, but they "started hauling out mats and garbage, and it was all over in two hours. You couldn't tell anything had happened." He told the cook it was "an easy mistake to make," and had nothing but thanks and praise for the police, who, he said, should have received a few platters of treats from Mary's Marvelous by now.