“Mom, that water is moving really fast. You don’t know what’s in there and it’s climbing. Don’t go out there,” her daughter had said.
Courselle said she’s thankful she didn’t. “Within a few minutes the water had risen a foot.”
She and her daughter made it out the back door of their house and scrambled to the Rifton Fire Department up the hill. When they returned later, their entire basement was flooded, their cars underwater, and the first floor, up five steps, was spared by “six inches if you look at the mud marks.”
Still, the home was uninhabitable. The flooded basement contained their electric panel, two new boilers, water pump and sewer pump, as there is no municipal water or sewer.
“The Rifton Fire Department volunteers were incredible. They had clothes and towels and food for us. Meanwhile, they live in this small hamlet and had their own flooding disasters, but were out helping to save other people,” Courselle said. “I can’t say enough about them. When the water receded they pumped out our basement and shut our electric panel off so that it wouldn’t spark and cause a fire.”
The two cars are a lost cause. “They’re older cars and we have no comprehensive coverage on them,” she said. “My 2002 Subaru may have a shot, but it will be costly.”
Courselle and her daughter have moved in with her mother in Saugerties and now have to rent a car to share to get back and forth to work.
“As devastating as this has been, I know how much worse other people have it. Thankfully, we have family here and a home to go to. Many people do not.”
That said, Courselle said that she “like many people who live paycheck to paycheck and with a flood you have to wait for an adjustor to come out, then an electrician, talk to insurance companies … It is so expensive and you still don’t have a home or a car. But I try to remember every day that we made it out safely and that the main portion of our home was spared. It could have been worse.”
State Farm Insurance Agent Jim DeMaio, based out of New Paltz, said that the bulk of the claims they’ve received were for “flooded basements, flooded homes, downed trees, trees landing on homes and cars.”
What DeMaio has to explain to customers is that homeowner insurance “does not cover flooding. Flood insurance can only be acquired through FEMA. We cover damage to cars if they have comprehensive coverage, to homes if wind or rain has damaged them, lighting strikes, power surges, leaking roofs, fallen trees and limbs on property, fire … Many things that can be weather-related but not flooding or groundwater infiltration.”
New Paltz town Supervisor Toni Hokanson said that she spent the last several days going door to door along Springtown Road — and other roads in the flood plain — handing out FEMA applications to them and explaining the process.
Mayor West said that anyone with storm-related damage should call the Building Department “so that we can keep track of who has experienced damage and help assist them with the proper channels to follow to get some relief.”
West said that the village has “not yet been able to assess the damage we incurred to our infrastructure. Once our crews get some decent sleep this weekend, then we will begin to make those assessments.”
The biggest issue the village faced, beyond the immediate threat to life, safety, farms and property, was from the sewage treatment plant located off of Huguenot Street, along the Wallkill River.
For almost an entire week the sewage plant was flooded out and unable to operate. People could still flush their toilets, but there was no treatment to the sewage and it would run directly into the Wallkill River.
West said that as of this past Friday, he was told by the head of the Department of Public Works, Bleu Terwilliger that “we had primary treatment and that we had begun to chlorinate to help cut down on pathogens entering the Wallkill River. I’m told that we should be fully operational by early next week.”
For those looking for information, assistance, or ways to help there are several key websites: www.ulstercorps.org, www.co.ulster.ny.us, www.disasterassistance.gov, www.cceulster.org, www.townofnewpaltz.org, www.villageofnewpaltz. ++
