One-Year Anniversary of Hurricane Irene in Yorktown

Yorktown residents were boarding up houses, making arrangements to stay with family and clearing the shelves at grocery stores last year. Hurricane Irene was on her way and people were not taking chances.

The storm hit on Aug. 28, knocking out power to thousands, flooding homes with more than four feet of water in certain areas and knocking trees over power lines and homes.

No one in this area was reported seriously injured in the storm, but emergency crews worked more than 24 hours straight helping residents with flooding and other damage.

A year later, Yorktown is looking into its emergency management system to ensure a better response next time around.

"The idea is we'll have the emergency response professionals handle the emergency," Yorktown supervisor Michael Grace said. "It's amazing how many resources [people, beds, cots, blankets] we have and no one really knows about it."

to be trained in basic response skills and empower them to supplement current emergency responders in case of a disaster. 

Public safety officer Larry Eidelman for the  has recruited about 40 members to the Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) program, which educates people about disaster preparedness for hazards that may impact the area and trains them in fire safety, sheltering operations, team organization and disaster medical operations.

The town has also been working with retirement facilities such as Beaver Ridge, Windwood Oaks and Jefferson Village, to help them to create an emergency plan. Last year Beaver Ridge residents, who lost power and were left in the dark for days,  but have not received one yet.

Yorktown town board members for Town Hall and the , which Grace said would cost approximately $60,000. 

The generators would replace older models that get transported from a storage location when needed. The bids for the generators have yet to go out – something the current administration would have to vote on once their meetings resume in September.

Since the storm hit, leaving tens of thousands in the lower Hudson Valley without power, some for exceptional stretches of time, Consolidated Edison (ConEd) and New York State Electric and Gas (NYSEG) . Last year elected officials, utility executives and first-responders to improve preparedness, accelerate emergency responses and foster closer cooperation.

"We have made improvements in the past year to our online outage system, for example, the search for a residence within a particular town or hamlet is easier," NYSEG spokesman Jim Salmon told Patch on Monday. "Our mapping technology is more user-friendly. We are constantly changing our communications and trying to evolve to be in line with how people get their information, for example, on mobile devices. It's a work in progress." 

However, Grace said he doesn't want the town to rely on anyone else and he wants to make sure the town can be self-sufficient and get itself "up and running."

"For me, the most important thing that came out is you can't rely on someone above you," he said. "You have to fend for yourself as a community."

One of the other issues after Hurricane Irene passed the area was the confusion around the distribution of dry ice in the communities – there was either not enough, word did not get out to residents or the distribution locations changed.

Grace said he is working toward coming up with a specific location where dry ice could be stored in Yorktown and a location where dry ice would be distributed every time – possibly Town Hall, the Yorktown Community and Cultural Center and another location in the northern part of town.

Hurricane Irene left actual physical damage to Yorktown roads and bridges. The town incurred expenses for overtime costs for police, highway, water and sewer department employees, as well as the cost of paying for gas and repairing of broken trucks.

Grace said Yorktown has received its first payment from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for $113,000, but he is awaiting more money for a total of $200,000 to $300,000.

View  and other articles from last year when the storm hit here. 

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