30 THE QUEENS COURIER • QUEENS BUSINESS • SEPTEMBER 9, 2021 FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM
Queens Business
Small businesses in Queens deal with new hurdles
BY ANGÉLICA ACEVEDO
aacevedo@schnepsmedia.com
@QNS
Small business owners in Queens
either spent Wednesday night, Sept. 1,
navigating rapidly flooding basements
or woke up Thursday morning, Sept.
2, to calls of devastating damage to
their shops, as remnants of Hurricane
Ida brought unprecedented and deadly
rainfall to New York City.
The storm — which brought a
record-setting 7.13 inches of rain in
the city on Wednesday, according to
the National Weather Service — left at
least 10 people dead in Queens, nine
of whom were stranded in basements,
according to authorities. While streets
and subways flooded, businesses and
their owners also suffered the brunt of
the damage.
Lois Christie, owner of Christie &
Co. Salon in Bay Terrace, said she
woke up at 5:30 a.m. on Thursday to
calls from the cleaning crew, alerting
her that her marble-floored salon was
flooded and covered in mud.
Christie said that while there were
loose cars floating along the large Bay
Terrace Shopping Center’s parking lot,
Christie and Co. Salon, located at 2364 Bell Blvd., was fl ooded with stormwater following remnants
of Hurricane Ida.
she was disheartened by what she said
was a lack of communication and assistance
from her landlord.
“We’ve never had a flood, not this
kind, in years,” Christie said. “I haven’t
seen one police officer or anybody else
come. It’s disgraceful.”
Christie acted fast to cancel hundreds
of appointments as they cleaned
the large space equipped with hair, nail
and spa services, but managed to open
by noon with services cut at 30 percent.
Their computers and phone lines
were down until the early afternoon.
Christie said it’ll take several hundreds
of thousands of dollars to fully
fix the space, but it will take several
days to assess the full scope of the
damage, she said.
“To walk in and see this is heartbreaking.
We’re all still trying to
regroup from COVID and now this,”
Christie said. “The impact of this to
small businesses is going to be catastrophic
and expensive.”
Queens Chamber of Commerce
President Tom Grech said Queens
businesses “need our help and support”
after more than a year of the COVID-
19 pandemic. He encouraged business
owners to report storm damages using
the Damage Assessment Tool provided
by NYC Emergency Management.
“We appreciate the efforts of our
elected officials, including Governor
Hochul, Mayor de Blasio, Borough
President Richards, Congress member
Meeks and the team at New York
City’s Department of Small Business
Services, who immediately sprang
Photos courtesy of Lois Christie
into action to help families, communities
and businesses in Queens and
throughout New York recover,” Grech
said. “We encourage all Queens-based
businesses with questions or concerns
to reach out to the chamber. We are
here to assist you.”
Residents and business owners
reported major flooding and cars left
stranded on the highway in northeastern
Queens, as well as the western end
of the borough.
In Ridgewood, the roof of a cleaners
business collapsed Wednesday night,
but no one was injured, according to
reports.
Just a street away on Myrtle Avenue,
chef Kevin Lenis, owner of Cantina 33,
was thankful that his fairly new restaurant
fared just fine, as did his nearby
neighbors.
“We didn’t get any flooding at all,”
Lenis said.
The same couldn’t be said in
Sunnyside, where dozens of businesses
reported basement flooding and other
damages.
Jamie-Faye Bean, executive director
of Sunnyside Shines BID, said she
heard from multiple business owners
from Skillman Avenue to 48th Avenue
who’ve sustained serious damage after
the storm, particularly involving sewer
backup.
“It’s a long, systemic issue in the
neighborhood,” said Bean, who’s advising
businesses on how to file insurance
claims and conduct proper cleanups.
Bean added that some business owners
say they haven’t seen damage on
Christie and Co. Salon was fl ooded with stormwater following remnants of Hurricane Ida.
link
/WWW.QNS.COM
link
