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.
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.
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.
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. 
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.
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.

 
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."
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 !
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.
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)
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.
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.
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 .
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".
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.
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 ?

IRENE is gone  .... but we're still here, back in business !!
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.

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.)