Businesses in Suffolk County cleaning up after torrential flooding
COMMACK, Suffolk County (WABC) -- Businesses and residents in Commack, Long Island, are still reeling days after storms left the town's roadways flooded and mangled.
A State of Emergency is in effect in Suffolk County where heavy flooding washed away roads.
Several businesses at a strip mall on the Vanderbilt Motor Parkway remain closed on Tuesday.
"It's clear that the old rule of thumb regarding the amount of water that can be handled is out the window.," said Suffolk County Executive Ed Romaine. "We're facing a new challenge with climate change and the one and a hundred year storms is coming more offered and visiting us and it's not 100 years."
Surveillance video from inside the family owned and operated Dortoni Bakery showed water pouring in.
Now the owner is trying to get back up and running.
"To be honest it's very a unique type of situation, I'm not really sure exactly what are the next steps, the next steps for them to clean up, disregard everything in the store, still trying to figure out what was the issue, what happened, why," owner Corey Messina said. "To me it looks like it's a bigger issue than flooding. Looks like something happened for a different reason. I don't know all the answers at the moment, we're trying to figure it out. I just opened the doors an hour ago. The cameras were on, I saw all the destruction going on throughout the night. It was pretty insane."
Just outside, cleanup crews have been pumping out gallons among gallons of standing water left behind in a parking lot.
Blightenburg Park Pond, known as Stomp Pond, in Smithtown, was literally reduced to rubble. Its original tree stumps were last exposed more than 200 years ago.
A nearby dam also failed from 10 inches of fast-moving rain, leading to the emptying of Blightenburg Park Pond into the Nissequogue River.
Stony Brook University also experienced flooding to more than 40 of their buildings, with 27 being residence halls and 17 being academic and administrative buildings. Two dorms had to closed, with those students being housed elsewhere on campus.
"In one of the residence halls, there was 9 feet of water in the basement," said Lawrence Zacarese, Stony Brook University VP for Enterprise Risk Management and Chief Security.
The school says it is also offering some students up to $5,000 to look for off-campus housing.
The county plans to ask FEMA for a federal disaster declaration with damage topping $50 million.
Gov. Kathy Hochul announced Tuesday that disaster recovery experts are assessing the damage to determine the state's ability to request federal disaster relief resources from FEMA.
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