A decade after Irene: Remembering the deluge

KEENE VALLEY| The hours of deluge that no one wants to remember but can't forget are ten years past. Tropical Storm Irene arrived Sunday, Aug. 28, 2011, rolling in on coiled bands of warm, wet air that condensed as they hit the mountains. A remnant hurricane, technically an extratropical cyclone, Irene had made a fourth landfall that morning in New York at Coney Island before blowing a wide path of catastrophic damage as it stormed north. The cyclone's clouds wrung out like sopping wet rags, dumping 7.25 inches of rain at Whiteface Mountain, more on the Adirondack forest slopes. The water raced pell-mell downslope flooding the Ausable River, its East and West branch tributaries, and the Boquet, along with nearly every brook in Essex County. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recorded 6.97 inches of rain in Plattsburgh and 6.61 inches in Elizabethtown in less than a day. The river gage maintained by the U.S. Geological Survey near Au Sable Forks clocked the river's pace on Aug. 28 at 46,500 cubic feet-per-second. Normal rainstorms push the river to run about 12,000 cubic feet per second. The Ausable reached 15.54 feet, over 8 feet above flood stage, clocking in with a recurrence interval greater than 500 years. The USGS gauge on the Boquet at Willsboro reached 16,000 cubic feet-per-second with water depth at 12.5 feet, a 200- to 500-year event. This was half the amount of rain that fell from Irene in parts of Catskill and Mohawk Valley counties of New York and in Vermont. According to a report "Perfect Storms," published by the Cornell College of Agriculture and Life Sciences in 2012, "Thirty-one counties in New York were declared Federal disaster areas with damages of over $1.3 billion dollars and 10 deaths reported." Town supervisors mobilized rescue efforts that brought in boats, ropes and bucket loaders. Eventually, troops with the New York National Guard arrived and stayed for nearly a month. In Keene, then-Supervisor William Ferebee raced to check on some 30 residents he knew were vulnerable and may need help as river waters rose. No one died in Essex County flooding from Irene, but escape from rising water and the destruction of community resources left hundreds of people stunned. Keene and Keene Valley were severed from their southern link to the Adirondack Northway. Entire lengths of town and county roads washed away. Bridges were scoured by debris caught in the roiling rivers. Keene's fire station was torn in two by raging Gulf Brook waters that pulled fire equipment and bunker gear into the East Branch. The fire station in Upper Jay was flooded and rendered unusable. With dire need for repairs to travel corridors, bridges, culverts and sidewalks, residents picked up the muddy pieces of their livelihoods and homes. Neighbors and strangers came together to help each other, clearing mounds of debris, washing and rinsing what could be salvaged. Rebuilding began immediately. Both Ferebee and then Town of Jay Supervisor Randy Douglas called for assistance from state and federal agencies. They focused reconstruction in a comprehensive strategic plan that eventually brought in millions of dollars for repairs, remediation and engineering assistance from federal and state resources. Both the Keene and UpperJay fire companies rebuilt their fire stations to new and exacting safety standards on higher ground. A list of 13 projects administered by the Ausable River Association in the decade since Irene are prioritized to mitigate flooding, protect communities and restore river habitat. AsRA Executive Director Kelley Tucker told Mountain Lakes PBS in an interview that they are really just starting to deal with repercussions from Irene. The water may be well under the bridges now, but personal stories 10 years out reveal ways Irene put life into perspective. Several were just published for the 10-year anniversary as part of the MyAdirondackStory project at the Keene Valley Library. Each story relays some of the ways people helped each other. In the collection, Jon Brown, of Keene, remembers the first inkling of danger as water began creeping over the river bank and into the park beside his house. His wife and baby son slept most of that rainy day, he said. He remembers, too, calling on a friend to help move their cars and equipment out of the water's way, then racing down the inundated main road to try and save his friends maple sugarhouse. "When we got over to Kurt's sugar shack, he was already flooded past the point where we could get in or do anything. His sugar shack was just going to have to roll with it," Brown says in his story. Headed back home, Brown said they "could hear stones rolling through the highway through the middle of town. ... just bouncing down the highway." And the fire station that had been standing 15 minutes earlier was gone. "I've always felt super fortunate to have been a witness to such destruction all around me, and luckily came out with barely a scratch." Keene musician, harpist Martha Gallagher describes how she and her husband came home from a performance tour to find the river had raced into and under their house and left a hole 30 feet deep, and 30 feet wide with trout swimming in it. She too relied on a neighbor and friend to affect repairs on their 200 year old home. Lifelong Keene resident Linda Deyo said she remembers Aug. 28, 2011 all too well. The AuSable River rose three feet deep inside her house on NYS Route 9N. In a race to rescue two horses, Deyo describes how she waded waist deep into the murky water to lead them to safety. And then how the barn was ripped off its foundation and carried away. She had a little help from her friends. They poured a glass or two as the rains came. "My partial glass of wine had floated around the living room and come to rest on the windowsill," she tells of what she found amid the debris. And, she recalls, Annie, the Keene Fire Department's CPR training mannequin, washed ashore on her lawn. "The memories and aftermath of Tropical Storm Irene will always remain with me," Deyo says. These stories provide historic additions to My Adirondack Story, the Keene Valley Library's oral history project. They are curated in the Catastrophes section with two podcasts about Irene. The stories are online at: myadirondackstory.org

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A decade after Irene: Remembering the deluge

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