Just months after being flooded by March storms, the village of Elmsford again found itself under water as Tropical Storm Irene pummeled the region.
“We had 22 streets closed for flooding and 25 people taken out of their houses by water rescue,” said Robert Williams, mayor of the village that is a flood zone by virtue of geographic juxtaposition with the Saw Mill River. He estimated storm costs to be in the millions, if not “tens of millions” between this latest storm and flooding incurred in March.
“This is probably the record-breaker,” he said. “Floyd and Irene are neck-and-neck.”
Williams called Elmsford “the hub of the county,” with Coca-Cola Bottling Co. and major mail distribution centers located in and north of the village.
“When the roads flood, there is major, major disruption,” he said of the highways that surround and connect the rest of the county to Elmsford. “The entire commerce for the county gets shut down when the roads flood.”
Hotels along Route 119 benefited from the storm with an uptick in check-ins.
“This hotel is typically busy and stays busy during the year, but we did have an increase in occupancy because of the storm,” said Tony Trusty, general manager of the Sheraton Tarrytown Hotel. “Saturday”™s increase was probably related to residents of New York City moving north and Sunday”™s increase was more related to the effects of the storm in Westchester and southern Connecticut.”
Down the road at the Hampton Inn, “Occupancy rates didn”™t rise much because we were already sold out that weekend, so we didn”™t have too many spares,” said Eric Mohlenhoff, general manager.
“We didn”™t experience any flooding because we”™re so high up on a hill on the southbound side of (Route) 119. We”™ve been here a long time and the hotel”™s made it through everything.”
Also busy were residential and commercial cleanup companies and waste removal services. But, it could have been much worse, many agreed.
“Our office is in Mamaroneck in one of the flood zones and we did extra sandbagging, moved vehicles around and luckily it wasn”™t as bad as it was four years ago,” said Kristina Feighan, an owner at Northeast Environmental Inc. “I think we spent a lot of time preparing, which helped us.”
Also in Mamaroneck, Royal Environmental Service Corp. faced “very minimal” effects from the storm, but owner Arnie Tschantre”™s daughter Amy Duffy said the downtown “got hit really hard.”
“We laid out tarps and have a dehumidifier going and we did a couple of basements that got flooded,” she said. “I live in Armonk and 80 percent of us still don”™t have power (as of press time).”
On Business Park Drive in Armonk, THE GYM offered free showers to residents, members and nonmembers alike; in Mahopac, Putnam National Golf Club did the same.
“About 100 people came in yesterday to use the showers,” said THE GYM owner Jeff Rivers. “Where we are at 99 Business Park, we usually lose power, but we only lost it during the meat of the storm on Sunday.”
Aside from gyms, another industry acted as a lifesaver to the homebound.
“I went and bought my mom a bottle of wine and they”™re busy,” Duffy said. “The liquor stores did very well.”
