Flooding along Route 9A in Elmsford, a notoriously flood-prone area, dumped several inches of water onto the pavement, forcing many businesses to close their doors Wednesday. Cars were seen abandoned on the road and police restricted traffic to the areas most flooded with water.
“This is killing my business,” Discount Liquors owner Sinu Joseph, who was closing his store that day, said in an interview with The Journal News/lohud.
Joseph had to park a mile away and walk to the store to cross a flooded street. His shop has been in Elmsford for 10 years and he has only experienced occasional flooding, but last year saw a significant increase in the number of annual floods.
“Normally we haven’t had much rain in the last four or five years,” he recalls. “But in 2023, there were three (floods).”
When he was forced to close his shop due to flooding along 9A during a previous storm, Joseph estimates he may have lost up to $20,000 in revenue. Even though Wednesday’s storm occurred on a typically quiet day, it will still cost him thousands of dollars in lost business.
New York flood updatesHow has the flooding affected the lower Hudson Valley? What’s closed?
Ramiro Jimenez, executive chef of Invito, an upscale Mexican restaurant on 9A, expected customers to trickle in once the road reopens.
“We are very confident that we can do business,” he said. “We know we can only worry about things we can control. Mother Nature is not among them. I am confident that they will continue to lead normal lives and support local businesses, because we need each other.”
Some of Mr. Jimenez’s employees arrived late for work, but the kitchen was busy when The Journal-News arrived Wednesday morning. Jimenez had not yet confirmed whether his reservations for that day had been canceled, but he hoped to continue dinner service as scheduled. In the future, we plan to offer lunch and brunch service as well.
“It was a learning experience for us,” he said of the flood-prone conditions. “We’re learning as we go.”
