Hurricanes and Tropical Storms don't often get to New England, certainly not in Albany, which is about 3 hours from the coast. Snowstorms are common, but not tropical storms. The news was covering it heavily, trying to make sure people were prepared. On Saturday, hurricane warnings were issued as far north as Berkshire County, Massachusetts. By car, Berkshire county is 15 minutes from Mom & Dad. By the way the crow flies, it's a lot closer. That was a little too close for our comfort!
Dad spent Friday picking up items in the yard. My parents have a nicely decorated yard. Mom has flowers all over the yard. She has a lighthouse in the middle of the yard. They have a patio off the garage, and a fire pit complete with furniture in the back yard. Dad picked up everything that wasn't secured in the ground. Their yard looked so empty when he was done. I took a cue from my friend Patricia, who lives in Myrtle Beach. When it looked like they were going to get hit earlier in the week with Irene, she said they were prepared to take pictures of their belongings. I thought that was a great idea, so Saturday morning I took first Mom's camera (til the battery died) and then mine, and took pictures of the entire exterior of the house, garage, and sheds, and I took pictures of each room. I made sure to get a photo of things that aren't common: Dad's diecast race car collection, Mom's curio cabinet filled with lighthouses, the 50" television so the insurance company would believe they really did have such a large tv in such a small living room. At the grocery store we stocked up on bottled water, sandwich fixings, fruit, and snacks. Dad located the flashlights and the emergency hand crank radio (which I gave him for his birthday one year and had been stored away ever since) and the batteries. Mom washed every stitch of laundry in the house, in case they lost power for days. I charged my Nook, thinking 'sure! The first time I don't bring real books home, we run the risk of losing power.'
And then we had to wait. Saturday was a mostly nice day, although it was so incredibly humid. In the evening it clouded up and we had a few scattered showers. Mom and Dad live next to a brook. Most of the time, this is a nice tranquil brook that lazily makes it's way along next to Mom & Dad's yard. But we have lived there long enough to know that at times, it can become an angry monster, lashing away at the road and the yard. Their road snakes it's way around, crossing the brook two times. The other end of the road (where the road starts) is far enough away from the brook that flooding is never a problem. Saturday night Mom and Dad moved the Highlander to the Catholic church parking lot, at the start of the road. They decided to keep the Rav 4 at home, and move it when they needed to.
Sunday morning we woke up to rain. It was raining hard, but it didn't seem any worse than a regular rainy day. We turned on the news, watching the ABC affiliate out of Albany. They had gone to non-stop weather coverage. Counties south Albany were getting hit hard. Dad walked down to the convenience store in town to get his paper. When he came back around 10:30, he checked the brook and asked for the keys to the Rav 4. He said the brook was rising fast. He moved the car to the Seventh Day Baptist church parking lot (which is adjacent to the backyard). When Mom & Dad put in the fence a few years ago, Dad had the foresight to put in a wide gate along the back edge so that if they ever had to get the vehicles out through the backyard, they could. We went inside and Dad called Grandpa to check on him. Mom put leftover goulash from the birthday party on Saturday in the oven, thinking we'd have a hot lunch in case we lost power and had to eat sandwiches for dinner. Then Dad saw the highway supervisor for the town pull in, and Dad went running outside. They were checking on the bridges on the road, and ours was close to going. The highway supervisor left to go get concrete barriers to protect the bridge. He wasn't gone a couple of minutes and the water started coming over the bridge.
The brook starts on the mountain as a little trickle and winds its way down the mountain, gaining momentum. This day, it was also gathering trees. The trees made it as far as the bridge leading to Mom & Dad's house, and then it created a dam, which caused the water to go up over the bridge. Dad stepped in and said 'the bridge is going!' and ran back outside. Dad and Uncle Walt (who lives right next door) and the neighbor on the other side of the bridge started grabbing things to stop the water. They grabbed lumber, bags of potting soil and mulch, anything they could get their hands on. They started building a dam on the road, trying to keep the brook inside its banks. The bridge went quickly. The water was rushing fast, and it was pouring now- torrential rains. We stood there watching chunks of pavement six or eight feet around being carried down the brook like they were leaves. It seemed an eternity before the town returned with cement barriers, but I know it was maybe only half an hour.
A neighbor on the end of the street farthest from the bridge called to see if everything was ok. Mom told her the bridge was going, and the neighbor asked if we needed anything. Mom said 'No, we're ok, Mark's just out digging trenches'. Next thing we knew, the neighbor and her husband were coming through the yard with shovels in hand and they started digging. They worked side by side with Dad, Uncle Walt, and the other neighbor for over three hours in torrential rains. Once the town came in and set two cement barriers in place, it helped keep the water headed toward the brook, rather than down the driveway to Mom & Dad's. The town couldn't really stay any longer than it took to set the cement barriers, because they were losing roads all over town. The cement barriers reduced the water that was flowing down the driveway by about 75%. Dad & the neighbors set to work controlling the remaining 25%. They dug trenches. One neighbor borrowed Dad's pickaxe to rip the driveway apart. They built dams along the edge of the driveway. The end result was the water that did get out of the brook was diverted through part of the yard and right back into it.
Dad came to the house and made a motion with his hands in front of his eyes, mimicking a camera. So I pulled on an extra raincoat Mom had, and went out with my camera. My camera instantly got soaked. Not wanting to ruin my camera, I thought quickly and grabbed a sandwich bag and put my camera inside that. The pictures had a haziness to them, but at least my camera held up. Mom came out with me, and we walked over to the bridge, amazed. The water was rushing so loudly it sounded like we were standing under Niagara Falls. I felt so helpless. I knew I couldn't use the shovels to dig and lift heavy wet dirt. Between the fibro and the problems I've been having with my hands, there wasn't much I could do. Mom has carpal tunnel, and isn't able to do much with her hands either. So we watched. Our clothes soaked through in about two minutes, but we stayed. I was wearing seersucker capris, and for a while they were kind of drying themselves. When they did get saturated, they stayed that way for a while. Six hours after I changed out of the pants they were still wringing wet.
The dam of trees was still forcing water over the bridge guiderail, even though the road part of the bridge was long gone. Dad & the neighbors knew they had to try to break the dam. The neighbor who had come over with his wife before went home, got his big 4x4 truck and drove it through the yard. Dad hooked up chains to the truck, and to the guiderail. They couldn't reach the trees, and the water was too deep to attempt to go into it. Then Torg got in his truck and drove forward, stretching the chains tight. He rocked the truck back and forth. It took several tries, but they finally were able to break the guiderail which eliminated some of the pressure and the trees started moving downstream. I didn't have my camera at this point, but a still photo wouldn't have done it justice.
Mom and I decided there was one thing we could do. We could feed everyone! We went into the house and put on a pot of coffee and started making sandwiches. When it was ready, she told me to yell out to everyone to come eat. It was so loud, there was no chance anyone would hear me. I went over to each person and told them we had sandwiches, and every one refused to leave until they knew they had the water under control. Once they did, everyone crowded on the small porch while Mom & I passed around a tray of sandwiches and took coffee orders. As I asked if they wanted something to drink, I offered a bottle of water. And then we all broke out laughing... here we were, fighting water for hours while water poured on us and I offered them more water to drink. We had been going on pure adrenaline for hours. Everyone raved about how good the sandwiches were. You know you're dead tired when a ham and cheese sandwich is the best thing you've ever eaten!
Thanks to the hard work of Dad and the neighbors, Mom and Dad's house was spared. They had a little bit of water in the cellar, but not much. It wasn't just Mom & Dad's house. If the brook had won and come down the driveway, after wiping out Mom & Dad's it would have made its way through the backyard to the houses on Main Street. It could have wiped out most of North Main Street in the little town. As I stood there, watching this unfold, there were so many emotions flowing through me. I was terrified. I had never seen water coming that fast, or in such a large volume. I was worried for my parents' home- for all they've worked for. My heart was filled with gratitude and warmth as the neighbors worked tirelessly together. And I was filled with pride. This was my hometown- my neighborhood pulling together. At the end, there was relief. Yes, Mom & Dad's bridge is gone. The only thing left is the culvert. My parents will have to walk in and out the back yard for a while. Possibly as long as a year. The town sustained damage on every road, and lost many bridges. While Mom works with the highway department, she works for the county, not the town. And this little bridge leads to only two houses. The town will be focusing on repairing the bridges that are on main roadways, or that lead to more houses. So I think Mom & Dad will be low on the priority list. My mother will have to change the way she goes grocery shopping. She has always been a person who stocks up. Now that she has to walk a ways to the car, Dad and I told her she'll need to just make more trips to the store, getting what she needs to get them through for a couple days rather than a couple of months.
But overall, my parents were lucky. Their house is still standing. No one was hurt. Throughout Upstate NY and Vermont there are stories of people losing their houses, their farms, their cows, and in some cases, their lives. It could have been so much worse. I know each of us
spent time counting our blessings Sunday night.
As for the town, and the surrounding towns, there is a lot of damage. All of the town maintained roads sustained damage. On Monday, the county had 17 county roads that were closed. Three of the 4 east-west routes between Troy and MA/VT were closed. This is what many of the roads in the area looked like after Irene. School is supposed to start next week, and right now, that's in question. Although the road crews are working around the clock trying to make the roads at least passable. It will be a long time before the roads are restored to their pre-Irene state (and even those were rough roads...). Our little valley was isolated after Irene, more isolated than usual. But it hasn't kept us down long. Each day I've checked with Mom, and more roads are opening by the day. People are picking up the pieces and moving on. While it was heartbreaking to see all of the damage, to hear the stories, it is at the same time heartwarming to know it will take more than a Tropical Storm to keep the people of the Taconic Valley down. They're a resilient bunch, used to hardships, used to working a little harder. It's one of the things you learn when you grow up in a remote area. Kind of a trade-off for the beauty that surrounds you. And yet, through the worst things, we look for the good. There's always a silver lining. For Mom & Dad, it was 'it could have been worse'. For most of the people in the area, the silver lining was "at least all this rain wasn't snow!"
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