FOCUS - Flood Of 2006

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A PUBLICATION OF THE DAILY STAR

2006 MONDAY, JUNE 27, 2016

The road to recovery Rebuilding after flood has challenged area

By Mark SiMonSon Contributing Writer

When water comes rushing in to your community, your homes or businesses, it has a way of etching clear memories of exactly where you were at the time the crisis struck. June 27, 2006, had that effect upon thousands across our region.

ONEONTA DAMAGED, WRECOVERED SMOOTHLY

“I remember where I was,” former Oneonta Mayor John Nader said recently about that Tuesday afternoon. “I was convening a meeting on downtown development in the community development conference room at city hall, and a member of the fire department staff came and literally pulled my chair away from the table and said the basement of this building is flooding rapidly and people should leave in an orderly fashion. Main Street is flooding, be careful, and Mayor, you’re coming to the emergency operations center with us.” State Senator James Seward was working in his Oneonta district office on South Main Street. “Silver Creek is directly below this office,” Seward recalled recently. “I could hear water rushing under the floor and an increasing amount of banging sounds, probably from tree limbs and other debris being carried by the water. When water started coming up through the carpet, I knew it was time to leave. Water was rushing down South Main Street by the time we left the building.” Nader recalled rushing to the city’s wastewater treatment facility with emergency staff on Silas Lane, where effects of flooding were quickly shutting down the plant’s operations. Department of public works employees were filling sandbags as fast as they could, but the damage had been done. No sooner had Nader and staff arrived, floodwaters were rapidly rising in Neahwa Park, and the floodgates on the dike on Neahwa Place had been closed, as the park’s millrace added to the flooding. The entourage of city officials raced to that site when there had been a false rumor that water was escaping from the gates. Former Oneonta Town Supervisor Duncan Davie was also out with local emergency officials, observing damage to reservoir

City of Oneonta Department of Public Works employee Larry Harrison uses a cellphone to report on the situation of the Silver Creek where it normally flows under Dietz Street in Oneonta. culverts, bridges and rising waters across the busy Southside business district. There had been concerns about the possibility of the dam on Wilber Lake breaking. Residents of local trailer parks were being evacuated, relocating to temporary shelter at dormitories on the SUNY Oneonta campus. Waters receded, and the time came for recovery. Nader said that during the flooding, city employees, from Common Council members to DPW workers, were “truly exemplary” in doing their jobs or assisting in any ways that they could. Very little private property was damaged, Nader said, because of the city’s previous infrastructural plans. Nader described the financial part of the recovery period as difficult, particularly with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), in obtaining assistance for the damage. FEMA was not as See FLOOD, Page 4

Jason Ritton of Jett Industries works at installing a new electric motor on a digester mixing pump underground in the city of Oneonta wastewater treatment plant.

Memories of the Flood: Donna Ford, Rockwells Mills By SuSan McLean contriButing Writer “That night, I hadn’t even thought about the restaurant flooding. I was too focused on my house,” Donna Ford of Rockwells Mills said of the day in June when the floods began. Ford and her family own and operate The Old Mill restaurant. The family lost the contents of their home in the flood, and the restaurant was flooded. Ford remembered that the water went up about three feet in the restaurant and at her home. Ford remembers it raining so much over a period of two or three days, but, she said, “I never, ever thought it would flood. I was just watching the rain, and it was even kinda fun, watching the river get higher. I thought the water would get really high, really close, and then it would recede, like it always did. Nobody ever expects this to happen. I get anxious now, when it rains a lot.” Ford was working at the restaurant the night the flooding started. “That night, I had a rehearsal

INSIDE

EDITOR’S NOTE

More flood memories, Page 3 dinner the next day, and they were from out of state, near Florida, and they called me, saying they were worried, that they saw on the news that there was a lot of flooding, and I told them not to worry about it, that the river never floods. Three hours later, the water started coming in, and I had to call them back and say, yeah, you can’t have the dinner here.” “I remember when the water went back, it was a beautiful day, sunny. It took no time at all for it to recede,” Ford said. “There was a snapping turtle and a fish in the dining room of the restaurant and a crawfish in the ladies room,” she laughed. Ford’s neighbor rents tractor trailers as storage units, and let her use a trailer in the parking lot. Ford used it to store all the dining room chairs while she gutted the interior of the restaurant. Ford was unable to stay in her home after the flood, which she

Focus on the Flood of 2016 is a special section of The Daily Star, dedicated to the spirit of resilience that has brought our communities through the past 10 years. Photos in this section are from The Daily Star’s files, unless otherwise noted.

Inside

By the Numbers, In Your Words .......................................... 2 Flood Memories ...................................... 3 Then and Now ......................................... 4 Timeline of the Flood............................ 6

Donna Ford signs paperwork as her mother, Doris, watches. The two were assisted by an American Red Cross team, including volunteer Joe Gold of Indiana. The Fords are in the living room of their home on state Route 8 in Rockwells Mills. They lost the contents of their home. They also own the attached historic Old Mill restaurant, which was flooded by the Unadilla River. said was troubling. “I had to stay with an employee for a few weeks and there was no looting or vandalism, but I was really worried about it,” Ford

said. “I didn’t like the idea of leaving my house open like that all night, while staying somewhere else. It was very stressful leaving all my belongings out in the open.”

Images of the Flood ......................... 7-10 The Five-Year Mark ................................ 11

Ford wanted to move back home as quickly as possible. “After a couple weeks, I bought an inflatable bed, and moved back home. I still had phone service, and I had a card table as a desk.” Fo r d a n d h e r m o t h e r See MEMORIES, Page 4


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