UPDATE: Croton & Ossining Prepare for Hurricane Irene

Officials and residents in Ossining and Croton are preparing for Hurricane Irene. The storm is expected to pummel our area beginning Saturday night into Sunday. The storm could pack 50 mph winds and heavy rainfall.

Village of Croton-on-Hudson officials had a meeting regarding storm preparations earlier this morning. Village Manager Abe Zambrano says the municipality has planned for the eventuality that the hurricane will hit Croton. "All departments are ready and have standby crews. We will be putting out a message to our residents later today or tomorrow," said Zambrano.

The Town of Ossining's Highway Department is cleaning out catch basins to mitigate flooding. They also have 300 sandbags and trucks that are being readied to deploy. "We have a supply of barricades and we are coordinating with Westchester County Police and emergency services. We are also putting notices and information about how residents should get ready for the storm on our website," said Town of Ossining Supervisor Catherine Borgia.

This morning Ossining Village Manager Richard Leins was on a conference call with Ossining Police Department Captain Scott Craven and the Westchester Department of Emergency Services to discuss storm prep.

Westchester County's deputy communications director says that the county's emergency operations center has already been partially activated and that County Executive Rob Astorino is there right now. "The key thing at the moment is preparation—preparation by the many county departments that could be impacted —and preparation by residents," said Westchester County Deputy Communications Director Donna Greene.

While some Croton and Ossining residents haven't even thought about hurricane preparations, others have a game plan in place. "We always make sure that we have a person who lives outside the danger zone on our emergency contact list and that they have all the necessary numbers to reach others to let them know we are okay… We keep our supplies in a massive Ziploc (size of trash bag) inside a plastic bin and we keep an extra tank of gas for the grill on hand in case we need to go without power for a long period—we then have a way to boil water and cook food," said Croton resident Julie Kelly on Patch's Facebook page.

For more on how to prepare for the storm, you can click on this link from Westchester County.

How are you preparing for the storm? Email me at Chris.McHugh@patch.com