Alejandra Palma lives in perpetual fear of the next storm.
“We are constantly checking the weather,” said Palma, who co-owns Root Hill Cafe in Brooklyn’s low-lying Gowanus neighborhood. “If we see that there’s a hurricane in Florida, it’s like, oh my God, please let it not come here.”
Last September, when record rain hit New York, it flooded her small businesses, damaging walls and floors already weakened from previous flooding and causing gasoline from a nearby construction site to leak into her basement. It took almost two days to clean up and reopen the shop.
Last year wasn’t entirely a fluke: Palma said that each year she loses about five business days to flooding and estimates that each day Root Hill is closed, it costs her business about $3,500 in lost sales and employee pay.
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