Florence robs family of hard work, savings
SPRING LAKE, N.C. — When the floodwaters from Florence receded, half the Starlite Motel was gone. A ragged lip of concrete edged parking spaces with no corresponding rooms, just a void of standing water.
The surge swept away personal belongings of the owner’s family. And it wiped out the investment that three brothers from India had spent years working toward.
“We put all our life savings in there,” co-owner Kishor Depani said of himself and his brothers. “We moved to America in 2007. We’ve been working until last year, when we bought this motel. We used to work at a gas station, small jobs — McDonald’s and stuff like that — just to save up money so we can start this business.”
He said the property in Spring Lake, N.C., didn’t have flood insurance.
Depani, 50, who’s a U.S. citizen, said he and his brothers moved to this country so their children would have better educational opportunities. His only child, a son, attends the University of North Carolina. His brothers each have two adult children, one of whom is pursuing a second master’s degree and another studying to become a doctor. The brothers moved to the Fayetteville area because their sister owned a gas station there.
The motel built six decades ago sits with its back to the Little River, but the brothers felt it was a safe investment because Hurricane Matthew’s floodwaters in 2016 put only a few inches of water on the property.
As Florence approached, Depani sent his family to stay with relatives in nearby Fayetteville while he remained to man the business.
Flooding predictions became direr, and an evacuation was ordered. Depani went door to door telling the 40 or so people in the motel’s 20 rooms to find shelter elsewhere.
Then he went to Fayetteville to wait out the flooding. He returned Sunday to retrieve some belongings and found only a couple of feet of water. A day or so later, while watching television, his worst fears were realized.
“We saw on the news, from the chopper, that the water was touching the roof,” he said. “My mind went blank — could not think, could not function.”
On Wednesday, the waters had receded and Depani went back to survey the scene. He and his wife went back into their apartment — now uninhabitable — to look for what they could salvage. Lost were a new refrigerator and dishwasher, television, two laptops, phones and his father’s wheelchair.
Older brother Dinesh Depani, 55, was dumbfounded: “I saw it and I was shocked.”
The three brothers had hoped the motel would be an early piece of a growing collection of businesses they could expand into other cities. They made a down payment of about $100,000 and still owe as much as $500,000 on the mortgage, Kishor Depani said.
He said business was great at the motel. He said he had exceeded the previous owner’s best months for sales and had been planning to remodel and upgrade the property.
What is left standing now, he believes, will have to be demolished. He was optimistic that he and his brothers would bounce back despite the uncertainty of government assistance. But that doesn’t mean it won’t be painful.
“It’s hurtful because this was the foundation,” he said. “But I’m hoping God will help us create a bigger, better and a stronger foundation.”