By Audrey Levine Staff Writer
Papers are strewn across the desktop, mostly brown and crinkled as though recently immersed in water. A plastic bag rests over a fax machine in the corner, shielding it from use. T
The scent of mold creeps into the office, getting into the corners of what owner Rich Ogiba calls his own “hellhole,” caused by flooding and a lack of help from government programs.
Mr. Ogiba is in the process of examining the options left for his stainless steel business — Roe Industries Inc., on Manville Avenue — after it was hit with almost 3 feet of water when the April nor’easter swept through the borough.
”I lost all my paperwork in the flood, and the fax, phone, everything,” he said, sitting on a towel that covers his chair, protecting him from any dirt or mold. “I had no financial assistance after Hurricane Floyd (in 1999), and I have none now.”
According to Mr. Ogiba, who has owned the business for almost 40 years, he is not sure if he can afford to, or if he even has the energy to, repair the business, and the equipment he uses to model and design the stainless steel.
Mr. Ogiba said he had been approached by the Somerset County Business Partnership and Mayor Angelo Corradino about applying for a piece of a $50,000 grant from W.W. Grainger, a Chicago-based company that sponsors a program to give grants to small businesses in towns that were affected by natural disasters, including floods, tornadoes, hurricanes and others. Each of the 33 businesses in Manville and Bound Brook that received a share of the grant were given $1,515.15 in total.
”I didn’t want to apply for the grant and I’m glad I didn’t,” he said. “I couldn’t do anything with $1,500.”
Mr. Ogiba said he was hit hard first by Hurricane Floyd with almost 6 feet of water flowing into his shop, but he was able to bounce back, thanks to a backlog of work and his employees who helped him get back on his feet in four months.
”I lost hundreds of thousands of dollars then,” he said. “My hand tools were destroyed and I lost work for four months. But I picked myself up to show everyone I could make it.”
Mr. Ogiba said he had initially hoped to get a $16,000 grant from the government to pay for some of the damages for Floyd, but his application was refused because the money was available only to pay down federal loans, which he didn’t have.
He said he’d wanted to use the money to repair, and purchase, equipment, but the grant was refused.
Following the devastation of Hurricane Floyd, Mr. Ogiba said he scored a profitable partnership with Johnson & Johnson, which made him the preferred supplier of its stainless steel.
Unfortunately, he said, a dip in the economy ended that work and drastically slowed business.
Now, Mr. Ogiba said, he is not sure what his next move should be as he tries to regroup from the damage of the April nor’easter.
”I’m trying to see what my options are,” he said. “All the equipment needs to be replaced at this point.”
Now, the borough is waiting for the completion of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Stony Brook Millstone River Basin project, which was launched in 2002 to analyze areas affected by floods and determine the best courses of action to protect commercial and residential locations in the future.
”We are considering nonstructural and structural methods of dealing with floods,” said John O’Connor, project manager for the Corps of Engineers. “The purpose of this is to study the feasibility of certain options.”
Mr. O’Connor said nonstructural actions include buyouts and raising already existing buildings and homes. Structural work would include building levees and flood basins.
The project, however, is only about one-third finished as of May because of a lack of funding.
Mr. Ogiba said he would be open to moving his business to another location if the borough could give him that option and perform the necessary title transfers. He said, however, that he is not sure where he would want to go at this point because he likes his location so close to his Dukes Parkway home.
In addition, Mr. Ogiba said, he is unsure how tall he could, or should, build his structure to prevent flooding from happening again, or at least to the magnitude it has in the past.
”I’m looking for some advice now,” he said. “I can’t afford to keep rebuilding.”

