Irene Recovery Mixed for Chappaqua Businesses

The recovery from Hurricane Irene is an uneven event for Chappaqua businesses, whose location and building elevation has left sharp contrasts to how they are fairing.

Businesses on the lower section of King Street, which got power back late Monday, were generally unscathed or got minimal damage, and some that were closed on Monday normally shut down then, anyway, owners explained.

“We didn’t get hit too bad,” said Marmalade owner Cindy Lupica, who spent Tuesday morning removing protective window tape and getting her store running again. Lupica is even offering folks use of WiFi, phone and fax service, for those still without power.

“I got lucky that way,” said Family Britches owner Barry Miskin, whose store is on King Street, but adjacent to the South Greeley Avenue parking lot, which was hit hard with flooding.

“We were fine,” said Scott Mikolay, owner of Desires by Mikolay. He said that a generator was used during the power outage to help continue with an ongoing renovation of the store.

Some merchants with low-elevation buildings along South Greeley Avenue, which is more prone to flooding, were not so lucky.

“Very badly,” was the impact assessment from Eye Gallery of Chappaqua manager Celine Lewitt. She said that carpeting is being replaced, and a decision on whether to replace a hard-wood floor towards the front will be made based on how it dries off.

Two other South Greeley businesses, Emmary Day Spa and Always the Children, had to rip out their flooring, and are now just with bare concrete.

Squires was one of the hardest hit, with almost three feet of water from flooding, according to owner Michael Kushner, who talked with local reporters about his recovery.

Kushner worked hard to get his clothing store back up and running, spending Sunday pushing water out and getting help from firefighters. He was able to reopen on Monday, and says that he is now 80 percent recovered. He has not had sleep since the ordeal and is still assessing damage.

Damage at Squires, while bad, does not appear to have surpassed devastation caused in the store by remnants of Hurricane Floyd in 1999. Two floodwater marks, from Floyd and now Irene, can be seen in a changing room, with Floyd’s noticeably higher. Kushner attributes the difference to the fact that Floyd damaged a nearby duck pond, causing more flooding, as opposed to storm intensity.

No cost estimate is in yet for Squires, but Kushner does not expect it to be as expensive as Floyd, he which said cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Kushner attributed the damage to the low height of the building he rents, which he said was constructed in the 1940s. A solution he suggested would be to demolish it and replace it with a new building built to “current, common-sense standard,” being higher off of the ground. Squires’ second location in Katonah was not damaged, Kushner said.

“The water table is very high,” Kushner said to reporters, about why the area is vulnerable to flooding.

Whether or not Kushner will replace the vinyl flooring – he said the material fares better with floods – is a wait and see.

Other South Greeley businesses, including Chappaqua Paint & Hardware and EZ Sports, were not hit with flooding because their buildings were constructed with higher elevation, according to respective owners Louis Bastone and Pete Zimmerman. The Chappaqua Library building, located further down South Greeley, did not get flood damage, according to Director Pamela Thornton.

Some merchants were concerned about the drainage quality along South Greeley. New Castle Director of Planning David Brito said that he had not yet heard of complaints and did not know enough about the situation – he is handling the ongoing infrastructure overhaul of the road – and could not comment as a result.