Flood Rescues In Clarkstown; Supervisor Does Some Tree Clearing

CLARKSTOWN, NY — Almost 5 inches of rain fell on Clarkstown in the past 12 hours.

"It's been a busy night," Town Supervisor George Hoehmann told Patch Wednesday morning.

Flooding has been going on since after sunset. But the widespread power outages he dreaded didn't happen while the wind was at its highest around midnight. "We were lucky. Given all the rain we dodged a bullet."

Route 59 by the Palisades Center is closed in both directions, as is Route 303 by the Route 59 interchange. Jeffrey Court in West Nyack is also flooded.

The trouble isn't over, though, as the Hackensack River will continue to rise for about 24 more hours, specially with all the snowmelt coming south from Orange County.

"We don’t expect that the waters are going to subside in those areas for some time," he said.

South Pascack Road in Nanuet and Route 303 in Valley Cottage have reopened after flooding last night, he said.

Hoehmann's work in the storm started sooner than he expected — in fact, right after he changed into gym clothes and left Town Hall (the fire department's graduation ceremony was last night). He had barely turned onto Route 304 when he saw cars coming the other way were swerving onto the median.

"A 40-foot tree had fallen and was literally blocking the two lanes. A car had actually hit the very top of the tree," he said. Hoehmann put on his police light and made a U-turn. "I get out, it’s pouring, thank God I’m dressed for the gym. I think 'this is bad.' then another motorist jumps out and helps me. After a struggle we manage to break off the top and drag it to the side of the road.

"We had other incidents like that with trees that came down, but I’m shocked we only had a couple of power outages reported and about three or four places with tree limbs in the road. They were quickly cleared by the highway dept with a chain saw."