Picking Up the Pieces

"In New York City, they rode out Irene by buying out the whiskey in Williamsburg and watching Netflix in their apartments. In Schoharie County, they watched the waters surround the Grand Union grocery, cover every gas station in town, and wipe out a year's worth of crops. They lost the diner, they lost the church, the lost the road out of town."


read article here: http://www.timesunion.com/default/article/A-day-full-of-fear-after-the-flood-2146810.php

Three days after the flood, residents of Middleburgh are hard at work, but residents of Schoharie are still not allowed to start cleaning up their homes. 

Nicolle's home

Bridge Street - that brown home did not used to be there

Alison's home

Water line under the clock.

The Conglomerate...

Businesses (including ours, the Pumpkin Patch) aren't sure yet if they'll be opening back up. 

I really hope this one does - their chocolate covered gummy bears are one of a kind. I always pick up a bag when I come home. 

A home down the road from us...well, used to be down the road from us. No one is really sure where this home ended up, after the flood picked it up off it's foundation, carried it over the bridge, and down the river. Not much cleaning up here.

Transformers are still exploding, gas is still leaking, homes are still being destroyed - 3 days later.

Some of the animal casualties from Irene. 

"Dead cows would have to be hauled off the fields, after the basement was pumped out, after the chasm in the driveway was filled in, after the boulders were cleared off the road, after the snapped telephone poles were put back in the ground" 

http://www.timesunion.com/default/article/A-day-full-of-fear-after-the-flood-2146810.php

Fish don't belong here...

2-foot, 25-pound carp in the road

Grand Union

This is the kind of picture that would show up on America's Funniest Home Videos. 

Except it isn't funny.

It seems like the whole town of Middleburgh showed up to help at Hubie's right away. Probably because it's the best pizza around, and people really want them to open back up. And soon!

After the water had "receded".

If you look closely, you can see my parents' car parked on the side of the road.

Middleburgh Main Street

National Guard most likely deemed this structure 'unsafe'.

The orange tags on the door had told owners they had to leave, and right away.

The road into town.

I want to point out that newspapers are calling it a "miracle" that there were no deaths. I disagree. It's not because of a miracle, it's because people in Schoharie County are smart - well, smart and prepared, and a little bit scared. When the dam sirens started going off, when they were told to evacuate, they listened. In New York City 350,00 people were told to evacuate. Only 9,000 listened. In Schoharie, everyone listened.

When I was in high school, we used to have dam drills. The alarms would sound, we would go out to the school buses, and drive up the flood evacuation routes. 

And yes, there are signs. Not because we are in a flood zone, because we're not. We are in a dam zone. 

A sketchy dam zone. 

On another note - a lot of people have said "I can't believe it was so bad, so far inland". 

Well, most deaths from hurricanes are inland. According to Fox news:

"Many people were surprised by the destruction that Hurricane Irene wrought in communities far inland. But National Weather Service records show that 59 percent of the deaths attributed to hurricanes since the 1970s have been from freshwater flooding."

http://www.foxnews.com/weather/2011/08/29/residents-return-home-to-assess-irene-damage-with-floodwaters-still-rising/#ixzz1WccVxNcE

Stay tuned... next up: efforts to clean up the Pumpkin Patch. :-(