Businesses with varied damage look for flood solutions

As flood waters from the Sauquoit Creek receded on Nov. 1, Joe Tahan's Furniture in Yorkville was reopened for business.

The previous day, a heavy rainstorm caused widespread flooding throughout the Mohawk Valley. Rising waters caused signficant damage to homes and businesses throughout the area.

The following Monday, there was still a thin layer of mud in the parking lot and an employee was wiping down the glass on the exterior doors of the Joe Tahan's Furniture. Inside the furniture store's showroom, however, everything was clean and dry.

Owner Al Tahan said the businesses in the plaza off of Commercial Drive were fortunate to avoid the devastation of the Halloween storm.

The furniture store wasn't just spared by good fortune, however. Tahan said the business installed flood barriers after previous flooding events.

The barriers, categorized as flood shields by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, fit into permanently installed brackets in doorways, Tahan said. Panels installed into the brackets are metal, with a rubber gasket around the edge.

A handle is turned to tighten the seal with the brackets and floor, Tahan said. The barriers stop essentially any water from entering, beside a small amount which is easy to mop up, he said.

"We were open the morning after the flooding," Tahan said. "It does prevent catastrophic flooding."

While Tahan did not remember the exact cost of the flood shields, he said they weren't inexpensive but cheaper than the alternative of damaged inventory.

FEMA provides a number of recommendations for floodproofing commercial properties or other businesses. Methods such as continuous impermeable walls, flood resistance around critical systems or utilities and flood shields are included in FEMA publications on floodproofing.

FEMA also provides access to the National Flood Insurance Program, which can insure losses up to $500,000 for the building and $500,000 for its contents. The average non-residential claim through the flood insurance program is about $89,000, according to NFIP data.

Building coverage includes systems like electrical, plumbing and walk-in freezers. The contents covered include furniture, fixtures, machinery, equipment and stock.

For many businesses in the area without flood protections, the Halloween flood led to more dramatic impacts than were felt at Joe Tahan's Furniture.

Nowhere else to go

Further down Commercial Drive, the cleanup was well underway at Harley-Davidson of Utica, just four days after the flooding. Owner Joe Carbone said when he returned to his business after the Halloween rainstorm, it was flooded out.

There were cars underwater in the parking lot and three inches in the showroom, Carbone said.

"We worked 48 hours straight," he said. "Got all the water out of it. We had some merchandise damaged, no damage on the bikes."

There was a sale of the damaged merchandise and the store was fully opened by the following Monday, Carbone said.

The floodwaters came from Sauquoit Creek, Carbone said. When the stormwater drains get plugged up, the water has nowhere to go which prompts the flooding.

Despite the problems, Carbone said moving from the New York Mills location isn't an option.

"I can't," he said. "There's no way I can rebuild this and just start over from scratch."

With being able to leave, Carbone said he's going to look at options to mitigate flooding at the Harley-Davidson location. That includes any interior modifications to save as much of the building from water damage as possible.

An early step involved removing all of the carpet in the building, he said.

Businesses and residents affected by the flooding were able to apply for some of the $500,000 allocated by Oneida County. The money was earmarked to repair or replace damaged furnaces, hot water tanks and other essential equipment.

The funds wouldn't be enough to salvage Kaz Tomaszewski's business on Oriskany Boulevard in Whitesboro. Boulevard Dry Cleaners is located near the Sauquoit Creek and Tomaszewski was still digging out mud and cleaning his equipment four days later.

"I had three tenants, they moved out because they had a complete loss, too," he said. "So this flood puts us out of business."

Tomaszewski owns the home behind his business plaza on the corner of Gardner Street, too. He said it's the sixth time his family home and business have been flooded out since acquiring them in the '90s.

The Halloween storm caused the worst flooding Tomaszewski said he'd ever seen. He said he believed shopping centers and other development along the creek contribute to the flooding.

It's hard for Tomaszewski to leave, owning properties close to the creek.

"This area is hard to sell," he said. "I put the property for sale about four years and I didn't even have one bite."

During his appearance in Utica last week, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said the state will need to reevaluate the way it handles its response to flooding events.

"It's the same areas that are getting flooded over and over and over again," Cuomo said. "We're working to come up with more sustainable situations, more natural infrastructure, hard infrastructure, that can ... hold the water back."

The state will be doing a FEMA damage assessment to see if communities like Whitesboro qualify, Cuomo said.

"There was tremendous damage," Cuomo said. "And if we can get some federal funding, we'll put state funding together with it and we'll actually reconfigure the community so we can deal with this in the future."

Contact reporter Steve Howe at 315-792-5015 or follow him on Twitter (@OD_Howe).

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