Hinchey and Executive Hein said that they’ve successfully worked with the state Department of Environmental Protection to have them bring equipment in and manpower in to continue to help repair and restore infrastructure and continue to clear debris away.
“We also have the Army Corps of Engineers slated to be on the ground this week in Ulster County to help us assess the damage, make recommendations as we move forward. Their expertise will help ensure that things get up and running in a safe, smart and efficient manner.”
County officials estimated that they’re looking at possibly $10 million worth of damage and destruction — seven bridges were washed away as well as many roads or portions of roads — just for county-owned roads.
Central Hudson stated that by last week they had 23,000 customers still without power and had made a goal to get “90 percent of all customers” back on line by Sunday, Sept. 4.
They were forced to bring in extra line crews from as far away as Ontario, Kansas and Oklahoma to help them with the massive undertaking of downed lines and blown transformers, as much of the Eastern seaboard is experiencing the same power outages and line crews are maxed out.
In New Paltz there were still many people without Verizon phone service.
The damage that Irene and its rain, flooding and winds took on personal property is also something that has yet to be assessed, but has effected many people’s lives dramatically.
“There were dozens of families in those Town & Country Condominiums (off of Huguenot Street) as well as other homes and apartments near the river and the flood plain that have lost everything,” said New Paltz Mayor Jason West, who suggested that anyone wishing to help flood victims go directly to FAMILY of New Paltz at 255-8801.
“They know who is in need, what they need, how to get it to them,” West said. “I know they’re very short on food right now and clothing, particularly children’s clothing as people in the village and town and all over the county have lost so much. Right now the emphasis is on making sure people who have lost their homes have shelter, that there is food on the table and that their children are clothed. School is starting and many kids don’t even have the proper clothing to go to their first day of kindergarten.”
While those in the flood plain, who’ve experienced dramatic weather events before, might have had some notion that their basements would flood, or taken the evacuation seriously and moved their cars to higher ground, there were many who had never experienced so much as a damp basement who were inundated by flood waters.
One of these was Pam Courselle, of Rifton. Courselle, a single mother, and her oldest of three daughters live in a home on Pine Street, just off of Route 213.
“We’ve lived there for 20 years and the house has been in our family since 1948,” she said. “We’ve never even had our basement get damp.”
As the pre-Hurricane Irene news posts dominated the airways, Courselle said she never “once thought there was any danger of flooding. We have a little brook across the street that runs into the Wallkill River. It’s never come within four feet of the road, not even close.”
So, in preparation for the storm she and her daughter “did what they told us to do. We had ice packs to keep food cool, extra water, flashlights, batteries … My main concern was that we have some big trees in the back, and I feared that if the winds were as bad as they said they would be that one might come down on our house, or some heavy branches.”
To her dismay, at 7:20 a.m. on Sunday morning, she looked out of her window and saw a river running through her street and halfway up to the tires on the family’s cars. She went to go out and move them, but her daughter stopped her.
