Naugatuck businesses begin cleanup process in wake of historic storm

“I had to stand out in the middle of the road and just watch this all get flooded,” Water Street Pub and Barber Shop owner Anthony Mongillo said. “The next morning I came in and I was just speechless.”

Mongillo, of Naugatuck, had recently celebrated one year since opening Water Street Pub and Water Street Barber Shop right next door.

“It was just all coming together, it was just flowing,” Mongillo said.

He said momentum was building for both businesses, only to have a storm tear everything apart this past weekend.

“I literally lost my life. I put my blood, sweat and tears into both these places the past year, nonstop work,” Mongillo said.

At the pub, flooding left customers standing on bar stools on Sunday night as water drowned the floor and swept through the basement.

“All my inventory was down there. All my liquor was destroyed, all the beer bottles and everything, I wouldn’t even touch them,” Mongillo said.

Next door, his barber shop and everything in it suffered a similar fate. Two businesses, wiped out in a matter of hours.

“What’s my next move? Where am I going to work? How am I going to make money? The bills don’t stop coming in,” Mongillo said.

But with the support from family, friends and others in the community, Mongillo said he has no plans of slowing down.

“We’re all helping each other with whatever we can, you know, just trying to stay together because we don’t want to leave,” Mongillo said.

Mongillo was one of many places in town now recoiling from the flood.

“What you see over here is all the tile that our volunteers had to rip up from the floors,” Animals for Life volunteer Cathie Pragano said. “In the bags is your bedding, the cat beds, anything that may have been on the floor.”

Just a couple minutes away, Animals for Life humane organization and adoption center has been dealing with its own challenges since Sunday.

“Volunteer’s spent hours here and they just worked together doing what they had to do, getting the boxes out, pulling up the carpet,” Pragano said.

She said the shelter was home to roughly 30 cats, all of which were displaced but ultimately saved from harm.

“They’ve been put with our volunteers. Our volunteers stepped up and I believe one of our volunteers has eight of them,” Pragano said.

Numerous businesses in Naugatuck and the surrounding area continue to recoil after the damages brought on from Sunday’s storm.

It’s a setback in a time when shelters have already faced challenges finding their animals a permanent home.

“There is the adoption process that it is going on and now this is going to be halted and animals for life is nonprofit so we rely strictly on the donations and when somebody adopts the cat, that’s donations and paying for their debt bills, that’s not going to happen for at least 30-plus days,” Pragano said.

In the meantime, she said it’s up to the dozens of volunteers to do the dirty work and get the operation up and running once again.

“I really don’t know how this is going to go. It’s something that we’ve never had to deal with before so this is definitely going to be a huge learning experience,” Pragano said.

Connecticut Emergency Management is asking business owners and residents in Naugatuck to report damages related to Sunday’s storm through the state’s portal in order to gather comprehensive information regarding damages to determine if the state meets the federal assistance threshold.