| Hurricane IRENE .... Behind the scenes in Shandaken | |
( In most of these photos, Supervisor Rob Stanley is the fellow in the white baseball cap ) |
As soon as the Hurricane
Irene disaster began on Sunday, Aug. 28, Supervisor Rob Stanley declared a State of
Emergency and set up an Emergency
Operating Center, first at the Shandaken Firehouse, then moved to the
Phoenicia Firehouse.
When the level of devastation became clear, Rob reached out to obtain expertise and resources from County, State and Federal levels of Government. Rob convened many meetings each day to coordinate the efforts of everyone involved - police, fire, ambulance, highway crews. |
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The increasing seriousness
called for immediate decisions to be made about the deployment of our
Town's emergency services forces.
Coordination was a full-time effort ... shown here: Police officer-in-charge Jim McGrath, Councilman Vin Bernstein, Fire Chief Gary Carr, Ambulance EMT Ernie Longhi, and others. |
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Also on hand to help was a
detachment from the National Guard - Engineering and Military Police
personnel.
Highway Superintendent Eric Hofmeister and Chief Carr briefed the Guardsmen and women on ways they could help our Town forces. |
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Everyone was on the job 24
hours a day, including the Ambulance Corps.
Captain Rich Muellerleile (in the white shirt) put on extra crews and pre-positioned equipment so as to avoid being isolated by road or bridge washouts. Despite the apparent chaos outside, the goal of the Emergency Operations Center was to ensure that everyone was informed, and knew what task was assigned to them. |
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Communicating with the
public was also essential, especially with no electricity, phones, TV,
cable or internet.
Signs were posted around Town ... not very pretty, but there was no time for a fancy POWERPOINT presentation! Green wrapping paper and duct tape did the job. |
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Rob and Police Officer-in-Charge
Jim McGrath working to coordinate the several Police forces on
duty. Town Police were joined by men from the State Police and the
County Sheriffs force.
Fire Chief Gary Carr (on the left) arranged for standby fire equipment from other towns - Stony Point, Pearl River, Maybrook, and others.
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Rob insisted that essential
information be visible to everyone on duty , and kept updated
constantly: road and bridge status, deployment of Highway
Department crews, rescue efforts in many residences.
"We cannot have any confusion about priorities, or who is doing what, or any duplication of effort." |
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Recovery efforts were
underway continuously from day one .. rescuing stranded residents,
clearing debris, repairing roads, etc.
With hundreds of workers and volunteers involved, there is a constant danger of conflicts and confusion. Leadership is essential ! |
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By Tuesday, stocks of
supplies were arriving at the Phoenicia Firehouse, for distribution to
the public. Dry ice, bottled water, etc.
As if by magic ? No: only after hours of phone calls from the Emergency Center. |
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Rob and Phoenicia ROTARY
president Ken Jacobs recognized the urgent need to utilize the local
civilians who were anxious to help in any way.
Starting on Wednesday, Aug. 30 they began the planning and organizing of a volunteer corps known as CERT (Civilian Emergency Response Team) |
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The flood water is down,
but the mud remains.
With most lines of communication out of commission, information was gathered by person-to-person contact .... just like the "old days" before we had all our modern electric gadgets. |
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Rob was able to obtain
emergency permits directly from the NY State Commissioner of the DEC to
permit the long-delayed dredging of the gravel accumulation in the Stony
Clove Creek.
Blocked by this barrier, the creek overflowed its banks and flowed two feet deep down Main Street in Phoenicia. |
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Eric Hofmeister, Highway
Superintendent, and Supervisor Rob Stanley pose in front of an excavator digging
out tons of gravel and sand from the creek bed.
Together, they reached out to "recruit" dump trucks from Towns far-and-wide ... Olive, Woodstock, Ulster and others. The excavator came from the City of Kingston . |
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If you have driven through
Phoenicia in the last two weeks, you must have seen two huge excavators
removing (or lets say relocating) tons of sand and gravel that have
accumulated in the Stony Clove creek over the years.
As fast as they can be filled, a steady parade of dump trucks takes the material away to be "relocated". |
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Since our Building Inspector
had resigned just before the hurricane, Richard Stokes, a local
inspector, was promptly sworn in as temporary Building Inspector and
Zoning Code Enforcement Officer.
His first task was coordinating inspections with State Fire Officials to inspect all affected structures. By Sept. 10th, Saturday, 535 buildings had been inspected, with 66 classed as RESTRICTED and 53 as UNSAFE. Rich briefs Rob on progress, as Undersheriff Faluotico listens. |
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With the power back on,
it's time to plan for the future, when we
will almost certainly be hit with another crisis.
Rob plans to convene an "After-event critique" conference, to evaluate the week spent during the flood "event". What did we learn ? What could have been done better, or sooner, or in a different way ? How can we document the lessons just learned ? |
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IRENE is gone .... but we're still here, back in business !! |
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| So
much for "behind the scenes" .... let's give a ton of
thanks to the hundreds of folks who were not
"behind the scenes" , but out in the front lines :
the Town workers, the Police and Firemen and EMTs, the cleanup volunteers, the fund-raising volunteers, the Rotary Club members, and everybody else who helped their neighbors recover from this disaster. |
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In Shandaken ... November 8 ... Vote ROW B to re-elect the Bi-partisan team that has been serving our town through thick and thin ! Re-elect Supervisor Rob Stanley (Rep.) Re-elect Councilman Vin Bernstein (Con.) Elect Councilman Alf Higley, Jr (Dem.) Re-elect Town Clerk Laurilyn Frasier (Rep.) Re-elect Highway Sup. Eric Hofmeister (Rep.) Re-elect Assessor Heidi Clark (Rep.) Re-elect Assessor Carol Seitz (Dem.) |
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