Like many other business owners in flood-prone areas of Westchester County, Sam Moy was more prepared for Irene”™s stormy visit than he was when the last major flood washed through his business four years ago. Moy”™s small business in Rye, though, might have been better equipped than most to handle Irene.
At Fong”™s Hand Laundry and Cleaners, a 55-year-old, third-generation family business in Rye”™s Purchase Street business district, Moy and his son Eric were ready with four hurricane pumps in the cellar when Blind Brook crested its banks and flowed across Elm Place into their building. Since 2007, they had also purchased four generators to keep their store running through any prolonged power outage.
On Friday, as Hurricane Irene moved northward, Moy moved his customers”™ clothes to an upper level of the store. Running out of rack space, he loaded a truck with the rest of the orders and parked it out of harm”™s way in the driveway of his home.
Across the county, other business owners also heeded news reports and municipal warnings and hustled to move supplies, paperwork and equipment to higher spots in their stores and offices as the weekend storm approached.
“We had enough notice this time to get a lot of things out,” said Robert Giorgio, owner of Westchester Italian Bakery & Deli on flooded Mamaroneck Avenue in the village of Mamaroneck.
Giorgio carried no flood insurance in 2007 and lost “tens of thousands of dollars” in the deluge on Mamaroneck Flats that closed his store for three weeks. His business received a share of the $10.6 million in disaster relief loans approved by the U.S. Small Business Administration for Westchester businesses in the wake of that disaster. He and other business owners were required to take out flood insurance as a condition for receiving the federal loans.
“If you”™re in this area and you don”™t have flood insurance, you”™re making a big mistake,” said Giorgio, speaking from hard experience.
Three days after Irene left the Mamaroneck and Sheldrake rivers again spilling over their banks, the bakery owner waited for power to be restored to test electrical equipment for water damage. “The store is in working condition, now it”™s just getting the equipment on again and seeing what”™s going,” he said.
”˜I”™m a fighter. I don”™t give up.”™
In Rye, the Moys and helpers spent about six hours pumping water from the store cellar. “The faster IÂ pump out, the less damage I will get,” said Moy. He learned that lesson in the April 2007 flood.
On Monday, Fong”™s cleaners reopened for business, well ahead of many flood victims in the county. “I”™m a fighter,” said Moy. “I don”™t give up.”
That same morning, Fong”™s Hand Laundry and Cleaners was visited by elected officials touring Rye”™s damaged business district with an entourage of television cameras. The Moys heard pledges of federal assistance from U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and Rep. Nita Lowey.
At a sidewalk press conference, Rye Mayor Doug French said investment in flood-prevention measures upstream on Blind Brook “would prevent a lot of this loss.” Westchester County Legislator Judy Myers said officials needed to put back on track a regional rather than local approach to flood remediation.
That regional approach was pursued by Westchester County shortly after the 2007 nor”™easter, when former County Executive Andrew Spano appointed a special task force to develop a comprehensive flood action plan and pledged $50 million in county capital funds over five years in a 50-50 partnership with local governments undertaking flood mitigation projects.
Four years later, four such projects, totaling some $8.38 million, have been approved for county funding, said county Planning Commissioner Edward Burroughs. Only one, at Gardens Lake in the Sheldrake River basin in the town of Mamaroneck, has been completed.
”˜Looking at the bigger picture”™
County officials last year agreed to partner with the city of Rye and village of Rye Brook in a $2.2 million project to install an automated control gate on Blind Brook at the Bowman Avenue dam in Rye Brook. Though construction is slated for 2012, the project still must be approved by local officials in the city and village, Burroughs said.
Burroughs said the county now is looking at major drainage basins “to identify where we can get the biggest bank for the buck.”
With the county”™s budget struggles, committing county financing for the joint flood relief projects “certainly is a concern,” said Burroughs. The county “will consider new projects on a case-by-case basis,” he said.
Burroughs said the county also is paying a $768,000 share of a $6.6-million U.S. Army Corps of Engineer study of flood remediation measures on the Mamaroneck and Sheldrake rivers. The five-year study is about four years from expected completion.
Though Army engineers have focused on “big-ticket items,” the county wants to look at smaller, more affordable projects that could be done while the study proceeds, said Burroughs.
“We do have some things under way,” he said. “We”™re looking at the bigger picture and we”™re plugging away at it.”
Getting back to business
In Rye, the Moys and other business owners were not encouraged by the politicians”™ post-flood visit. They have heard before the talk of flood remediation and assistance. It has not been followed by action, they said.
“You promised me this four years ago,” said Chris Colalucci, as if addressing the officials who a day earlier stopped at his popular and again flooded Rye Country Store at 41 Purchase St.. “It was like our fifth time, so what are you going to do?”
The business sustained about $300,000 in losses in the flooding four years ago, the worst of five flood events weathered by the partners. “Mentally, it”™s devastating,” said Colalucci. “Every time, it ages you.”
“The 2007 flood was a disaster, it wiped out everything,” he said. At Rye Country Store, “That was about 11-feet high. This flood looks to be about six to seven feet.”
The gourmet food store and caterer”™s 2,000-square-foot basement kitchen was knocked out of production. Colalucci and co-owner Claire Hassi Rivas hoped to salvage water-soaked equipment that included walk-in refrigerators and freezers. They had incurred “a great loss of base goods,” he said.
The partners, though, continued to serve customers, some of whom swapped flood stories over the counter with Colalucci.
Ralph Borsella, owner of an All State Insurance agency, described how his staff for a day processed flood victims”™ claims on laptops from the second floor of his flooded Elm Place office, behind which Blind Brook runs a few feet away.
Hassi Rivas, the gourmet store”™s co-owner, said officials place responsibility for flood remediation at another level of government. “The city says it”™s the county. The county says it”™s the state. The state says it”™s the federal,” she said.
At Fong”™s Hand Laundry, Sam Moy”™s flood memories go back 39 years ”“ to “6/18/1972, the first flood,” he said. “I can never forget that. My father got a heart attack.” Moy”™s father started the business at another location in Rye in 1956.
“Since 1972, there are still things in the brook” that have not been removed by public works crews, Moy said, pointing to Blind Brook across the street.
“Mother Nature we cannot stop,” he said. “A small thing like dredging, that might help a little. ”¦ If they could reduce it by three or four feet, that would really help out.”
