The county”™s flood disaster has created a heavy demand among residents and businesses for the services of Westchester contractors, some of whom had to contend with water damage to their own businesses.
“We kept going right through it,” said Dwayne Monaco, co-owner of Northeast Environmental in Mamaroneck, an environmental cleanup company at 225 Valley Place that had equipment damaged in basement flooding.
The 12-employee company had some workers putting in 13-hour and 14-hour days pumping out basements of oil and water in the first days after the nor”™easter hit the region. Monaco said crews also were kept busy pumping water from underground storage tanks and removing hazardous spills of oil and gasoline.
Over three days, Monaco”™s company served more than 2,000 flood victims.
While demand for pumping services had abated, “The rush is going to come again because we also do mold remediation,” Monaco said. “That”™s going to be starting up.”
“Mold is going to be a real big problem. All that wet material is going to sit down in the basement and it”™s going to grow. It”™s going to grow quick.”
Royal Environmental Service Corp. in Mamaroneck has been “extremely busy” pumping out basements and oil tanks, said owner Arnie Tschantre, whose business at 620 Fayette Ave. had 2 feet of water in the cellar and a leaky ceiling.
Crews cleaned up about nine hazardous waste spills in the first days of recovery and responded to more than 40 emergency calls throughout the county, he said.
“Banks, houses, businesses, you name it,” Tschantre said. “Everyone was affected. There were no exceptions.”
The environmental services contractors were among the first called in the recovery effort. Licensed electricians, plumbing and heating contractors, building repair and demolition contractors have been in demand, too.
Monaco said flooding has grown worse in Westchester in the last seven to 10 years with the boom in commercial and residential development.
“It”™s a heavily populated area, so there”™s no place for water to run into the ground any more,” he said. “It”™s all pavement and surface runoff and the storm systems just can”™t handle it.
“It”™s just way too much water.”
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