Moriah in recovery from summer flooding

MORIAH | It's been two months since mid-July rains wreaked havoc across Moriah and Port Henry. Town Supervisor Matt Brassard declared a State of Emergency on July 10 as rainfall of significant amounts descended upon the community, leaving destruction and devastation in their wake. Homes, bridges, and roadways saw massive amounts of flood damage. Campers and homeowners were marooned, and local roads were completely submerged and impassable. "Just about every road in the town of Moriah had some type of damage, be it to the shoulders and culverts washed out or partially washed out," recalled Brassard. "Any place in town you could find damage of some kind." It was one heck of a mess; Tracy Road, Bartlett Pond Road, Tunnel Avenue, Dock Lane, Pilfershire Road, Cheney Road, Fairy Lake Road, Riddle Road and Joyce Road all saw closures. The rail crossing on Bulwagga Drive and the majority of Harbour Lane were underwater, Port Henry Beach Campground was washed out, and the Garrison Gym Outpost Victory in Moriah was also submerged, devastating the interior and equipment, and three residential homes in Port Henry had significant water in their homes. "Tropical Storm Irene was a little bit worse as far as overall damage, but it's pretty close to the damage of Irene," Brassard noted. The Town of Minerva sent four trucks on two separate occasions to assist in hauling material at no cost, easily saving the town $10,000 to $15,000. "I can't say enough about all my town workers, the Highway Department, Building and Grounds crew, campsite staff, the Water and Sewer department, and my ladies here in the office that have to do all the paperwork and get everything filed and separated for each FEMA project," commended Brassard. "The emergency contractors (Kubricky and J. Hutchins) came right in immediately to help out." Currently, all the town roads have been reopened, with Riddle Road being one lane but passable to all residents and school buses. All other roads are fully restored to two lanes with temporary repairs on some. Brassard said the cost of the temporary repairs is between $1.2 to $1.5 million. "We are waiting for our Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) meeting to happen in the next couple of weeks," he said. "A couple of those temporary repairs we will be upsizing the culverts and doing some permanent repairs." "Now that there has been a major FEMA declaration, FEMA will reimburse us at 75 percent, and typically New York State will kick in another 12.5 percent, so that will leave town on the hook for another total 12.5 percent of total costs of repairs." According to Brassard, a typical town would most likely have had to borrow money for the temporary storm repairs, but former Town Supervisor Tom Scozzafava left Moriah in good financial standing when he retired, resulting in Brassard not needing to secure outside funding. "I will probably have to borrow money to do the upsizing, but again, getting back 87.5 percent of whatever we have to borrow there shouldn't be a huge impact on the taxpayer," he assured. Brassard said the days of these being one in 500-year floods are simply no longer accurate "When it rains it is torrential, we get an inch of rain in 15 minutes now, the whole weather pattern has shifted and unfortunately small towns in Upstate New York just don't have the infrastructure to handle this type of weather," Brassard observed. "Our culverts are too small, the terrain is too steep, and it is going to cost a lot of money and mitigation to upsize these culverts to the size they need to be to handle the volume of water we now receive." Looking to the upcoming winter, though the Town and area are well adapted to persevere and handle massive amounts of North Country snowfall, if rains become the precipitation du jour, it would become an entirely different ballgame. "If we are going to start getting rain storms in January when the ground is frozen and won't absorb water, that would be a major issue for the roads as far as flooding," he predicted. "If you get a two to three inch rainstorm in winter when it should be snowing, you could be looking at catastrophic flooding." After the flood the supervisor started reaching out to various organizations to see if there was any help for residents or businesses affected by the damage. "The Essex Country IDA stepped in and handled the business people," Brassard said. "As far as the residential people, there's been a few organizations that I have passed on to people and they have been working together. I think they offer some assistance for people who had water inside their house to take their flooded debris to the transfer station and reimburse them for the cost. As far as significant financial help, unfortunately when these floods happen, FEMA doesn't really come to the aid of individual assistance, which is sad." Brassard believes that with the shift in and increase in rainfall, none of our communities are set up to handle that amount we receive in such a short period of time. Brassard said he had made multiple requests for the DEC to make a site visit to Moriah. Almost two month out, that has yet to occur. Our brooks need to be dredged, that is a whole other ballgame with DEC and EPA. There is a lot of red tape to get through to try and correct a lot of these problems that could reduce the chances of flooding."

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Moriah in recovery from summer flooding

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