One year has passed since business owners in the village of Mamaroneck watched helplessly as the fast-rising waters of the Mamaroneck River flooded their offices, retail stores and showrooms, restaurants and industrial shops.
On this anniversary of the disaster, “We don”™t know if we should celebrate or cross our fingers,” said Anthony Fava, whose Allstate Insurance Company agency on Mamaroneck Avenue was among scores of businesses temporarily closed by the flood. Fava owns three commercial buildings in the hardest-hit village business district, north of the Metro-North railroad tracks.
“There are a lot of people that never recovered after the flood,” he said. On his block alone, five of the 10 businesses open at the time of the flood are no longer in business, he said.
After more than 18 years in Mamaroneck, Fava”™s insurance agency was one of the more established businesses on the flood-ravaged Mamaroneck Flats. “I was able to stay in business,” he said. “People that didn”™t have that I-don”™t-know-what, couldn”™t.”
At Westchester Italian Bakery & Deli on Mamaroneck Avenue, owner Robert Giorgio said his family”™s 50-year-old village business might have folded after the flood had he not been deluged with volunteer help from construction workers and electricians and donated materials in rebuilding.
“We were totally devastated by the flood,” said Giorgio, whose business recovery also was aided by a Small Business Administration loan. “If it wasn”™t for the customers and friends and family who came out, we never would have reopened.”
The businessman in the days after the flood also heard a plea from then-mayor Philip Trifiletti. “He came and said, you”™ve got to stay,” Giorgio recalled last week. “If you don”™t reopen, this area is pretty much finished. We”™re like a foundation for this whole area on this side of the bridge.”
One of the larger flooded businesses on Hoyt Avenue, Davis Studio, has relocated to Tarrytown, Giorgio noted. Then too, “There were a lot of small businesses that were just getting by and that (flood) put them over the edge. That killed them.”
“A lot of people don”™t realize the impact,” Fava said. Along that stretch of Mamaroneck Avenue, “It hit every single store to a great extent. You look at Bilotta, they lost millions.”
On Mamaroneck Avenue, Bilotta”™s headquarters showroom of kitchens and home cabinetry had been renovated just before the flood, which forced staff to work out of trailers in a back parking lot. The banner hung outside the family-owned company in the wake of the flood ”“ “6 Feet But Not Under” ”“ became a prominent symbol of Westchester County”™s determined recovery from the disaster. After a seven-month rebuilding project, Bilotta celebrated its reopening there in December.
In Mamaroneck, Fava experienced the disaster from another vantage point, too. One week after the flood, he was appointed the village”™s deputy mayor while serving on the Board of Trustees. No longer in public office, Fava last week said he was free to speak his mind about government efforts at flood abatement.
“I don”™t think the government can do what has to be done to fix it,” he said. “Governments are filled with bureaucrats. You need people who are ahead of the curve, entrepreneurs. Government will keep spending money and it (the river) is going to keep rising. God”™s not going to wait for bureaucrats.”
After a century of development that created the conditions for a flood disaster, “You need to redirect the river,” Fava said. “That means you have to take houses and buildings down, maybe take bridges down and change the traffic. The way to fix it is so complex that it may never get done. It”™s way too complex to think it”™s going to be fixed in five years.”
At his bakery and deli, Giorgio was required to take out flood insurance as a condition for receiving his federal disaster loan. “To me it”™s peace of mind to know that I”™m covered for $100,000 for losses if we have one again,” he said.
“So far, we haven”™t seen anything being done to prevent another flood,” he said. “So I think we”™re probably going to have them.”
