Elmsford, NY, tucked away in Westchester County NY, is not the place you expect a Hurricane to hit, but on the evening of Sept 17th, 1999, that is exactly what happened. We knew it was a bad storm so I sent everyone home early and at around 4PM water started to enter the front door. I decided it was time for me to go so I jumped in my Expedition and headed home. Later that night I drove back to the office to see what was going on but because the Saw Mill River (really just a stream on the rainiest of days) had flooded, I was able to get no closer than 9A, the E-W road near my office. Now, I was concerned. Hurricane Floyd had hit the town I currently live in, Delray Beach, Florida on Sept 14th and headed up the east coast to hit my then residence, Elmsford, NY.
Early morning on the 18th I pulled up to the office and saw my two story building surrounded by 3 feet of rushing water. I knew I had to get inside so I hiked up my shorts, put my video camera under my arm (I accidentally left the camera on during this walk) and walked upstream. Around the front and into the building and the devastation began to hit me. A car that tried to make it through with water on its hood and branches and muck pounding the front of my building. I pulled the door open and the water was just as high inside as out. I took a quick step to the left and upstairs to catch my breath and access what was going on. I was not upstairs and dry but I realized that I was in trouble, personally and financially. Downstairs was my warehouse with hundreds of thousands of dollars in software.
Like the parting of the Red Sea, the water drained quickly and the devastation became apparent. My warehouse was in ruins. Piles of software had collapsed under its own weight and the mud and watery mix left a mess. I walked around that afternoon in a daze. We had a $30,000 product return that wasn’t picked up because we had to close early. Destroyed. Anything that was in the first three racks from the floor was gone. Destroyed.
Flood insurance? No. First we weren’t in a flood zone. The last time the Saw Mill River had flooded was some 40 years prior and flood insurance is a federal insurance and too expensive for a small business. Had a water pipe broken 5 minutes before the flood waters entered my building I would have been completely covered. But that was not the case.
The next day I had two dumpsters placed at either end of the building and we started disposal. We threw away roughly $300,000 worth of software, a loss that a small business owner could not absorb.
What had happened took a while to sink in but that Friday I laid off 10 employees and just like that, we were done. A week earlier I had been interviewed by Fox News about the software business and now it was gone.
The following days and months took it toll on me but it is now 10 years later and I am comfortable with the way I handled the events of Sept 18th, 1999. From Flood, to bankruptcy, to personal issues and now the sale of my recent business, a wonderful wife and a baby daughter on the way, it has been some 10 years. It feels like yesterday I hiked up my shorted and walked up the Saw Mill River.
