After Sandy, most beach businesses staying afloat

STORMING BACK: The Andrea Hotel was badly damaged by Hurricane Sandy, but that hasn’t pushed away visitors, including, from left: Lisa and Paul Leonowicz and Laurie and Chuck DiMauro. / PBN PHOTO/ BRIAN MCDONALD
STORMING BACK: The Andrea Hotel was badly damaged by Hurricane Sandy, but that hasn’t pushed away visitors, including, from left: Lisa and Paul Leonowicz and Laurie and Chuck DiMauro. / PBN PHOTO/ BRIAN MCDONALD

Upended by more than $2.4 million in beach-related damages alone last October by Hurricane Sandy, affected Westerly businesses have found creative ways to reopen this summer, though challenges to a full recovery for both the beaches and some businesses remain.
In Misquamicut village, the Andrea Hotel’s 24 rooms were obliterated, but the restaurant kitchen remains. A flourishing, makeshift restaurant has been erected in a walled tent, says owner Michelle Colucci Pinto, and will be incorporated into plans for a rebuilt hotel.
“Our dream is to have our hotel back,” she said.
In the meantime, what used to be front-desk service has transitioned to retail sales of storm memorabilia, including T-shirts and sweatshirts with a storm logo and the declaration, “Mother Nature may knock us down, but we always get back up,” co-owner and sister Rebecca Colucci said.
The wood-framed building that once housed Sam’s Snack Bar along Atlantic Avenue is gone, said business proprietor Norman H. Dufresne, who used to lease the space. In its place, Dufresne outfitted a $95,000, 38-foot mobile trailer with refrigeration equipment. With 12-hour’s notice, he can pick up the latest incarnation of Sam’s and leave if another big storm comes.
And at Maria’s Seaside Café, at the corner of Montauk and Atlantic avenues, owned by the Bellone family, guests are staying in seaside suites above the structurally sound building, but the restaurant itself has been shuttered. The café is targeted, co-owner John Bellone says, for rebuilding in the same spot, not far from the family’s intact 55-room Breezeway Resort Hotel at 70 Winnapaug Road.
“Every year you always expect some kind of a storm,” Bellone said, “but I didn’t think it was going to happen [with Sandy], especially after Irene, when we were relatively unscathed.”
Instead, he recalled seeing Dumpsters shoved whole blocks from their original positions, and barstools and bottles of Italian water floating down Montauk Avenue. “It was kind of shocking,” he said.
Memories of the storm’s impact remain vivid for many of the 30 members of the Misquamicut Business Association who suffered severe damage and/or loss of income from the storm, said association Executive Director Caswell Cooke Jr. The association has 197 members total, including 40 business owners, cottage owners, and service and product providers, he said.
But despite the weak economy, business along Misquamicut’s three miles of beaches, which include a half-mile of state beach, is back, Cooke said. With just about every business and the beaches opening by Memorial Day this year, festivals and other programs went on as planned.
“We’ve recovered,” Cooke said. “Is each business at 100 percent? I would say ‘No.’ But we’re at 90 [percent].”
Last year, state and local officials made a point of visiting the sites and providing emergency-permit paperwork to business owners hoping to reopen, said Laura Dwyer, spokesperson for the Coastal Resources Management Council. This year, they are still helping where they can from a distance, she said.
Stabilizing the dunes, which have been restored with more than $1 million in federal and state funding, remains a concern, according to Bob Paquette, chief of Rhode Island state parks, and Amy Grzybowski, Westerly’s director of planning-code enforcement and grant administration.
Beach erosion from the storm necessitated clearing the roads of up to 6 feet – 67,000 cubic yards – of sand, sifting out debris and placing the sand back on the dune line, Grzybowski said. Both the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the R.I. Department of Environmental Management helped fund that restoration, she said.
But the dune grasses with their protective root system to anchor the sand are gone, and the state has not been able to buy more, Paquette said.
He has budgeted $85,000 to buy American beach grass from farmers in New Jersey or Cape Cod, but a bid in the spring came back empty. He hopes to put out a bid again this fall. The state’s beach pavilion has been repaired temporarily but more work is needed. With more than 50 percent damage, the pavilion needs to be raised before next season a foot above base flood elevation and moved north 42 feet to get it out of the surge area.
And the businesses targeted for a rebuild – the Andrea and Maria’s Seaside Café – have to satisfy setbacks and other conditions stipulated by the CRMC, as well as shepherd plans through the town’s planning and zoning department.
The Colucci sisters, who estimate lost hotel revenue at $500,000 or more, say the cost to rebuild 22 rooms at the Andrea at 89 Atlantic Ave. is approaching $3 million, and that design plans would have to include putting the property on pillars. The pillars will likely be high enough to park cars underneath the building, they said.
And Bellone, who plans to spend as much as $3 million on a restored Maria’s Seaside Café, with hopes of restoring it next summer, has been relying on income from the Breezeway this season.
Between May and this coming September, Bellone estimates he may lose as much as $1 million in revenue for the former Mediterranean-style, upscale eatery and bar, which seated 150.
“This was our decision not to reopen because we plan on building something new once we get permitted,” he said.
Challenges aside, the businesses and surrounding community have rallied not only with $426,000 in fundraising led by the Greater Westerly-Pawcatuck Area Chamber of Commerce but by fostering a cooperative spirit, said Grzybowski and Lisa Konicki, the Chamber’s executive director.
Recovering from a major storm “is always a long process, but the property owners and business owners have worked very hard to be active for the season and they’ve succeeded,” Grzybowski said. “I’m sure it will take us two to three years to fully recover, but it’s not stopping Misquamicut.” •

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