Town of Cortlandt Applying for FEMA Relief Funds

The Town of Cortlandt was one of Westchester County’s hardest hit by Hurricane Irene on August 28, causing New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo, as well as town Supervisor Linda Puglisi to declare the area a disaster zone.

At one point more than 3,000 Con Edison customers in Cortlandt were without power. About 70 trees were reported down across power lines and roads and many more limbs and trees fell on private property.

The cost of overtime and paying outside contractors (tree removal companies) cost the town a preliminary estimate of about $100,000, said Supervisor Linda Puglisi. Puglisi expects costs of mitigation and repairs to add up to another $100,000.

Town officials are working on the final FEMA applications now and hope to receive the necessary funds to fully recover from the storm.

At last night’s Town Hall meeting Supervisor Puglisi thanked the Department of Environmental Services and its Director, Jeff Coleman, as well as first responders, fire departments, city engineer Ed Vergano, other members of town staff that served at the Emergency Operations Center and Cortlandt’s families for being patient.

“I know, first hand, how difficult it is to be without power, phones, tv… but residents showed tremendous patience,” Puglisi said, thanking Cortlandt families.

The Town Board also passed a resolution requesting Con Edison to take measures to improve their power outage restoration procedures.