Quoted from GrahamBonnet

I have wondered why the infallible bureaucrats at the state did not draw the Schoharie reservoir down several feet in the week or so before we knew this event was coming? Why were the spillways lowered on the Mohawk in that window as well, allowing for greater capacity? No one in the press will ask that because it might embarrass the state Canal Corp and the NY Water Authority or any other politician upriver with his hand on the lever- especially the Governor and his administration of the Canal Corp...(Who runs that?)... But they are the culprits, just as when the Hudson River - Black River Regulating District is the culprit when the Hudson floods because not enough draw down. However this is worse b/c this is was a forecasted storm vs. a spring ice melt event that could not as easily been gauged.

Think people, think.

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ROTTERDAM JUNCTION
Houses nobody wants Many structures damaged by floods sit empty
BY SARA FOSS Gazette Reporter

    The three houses sit in a row, silent and empty, their windows boarded up and a musty smell wafting through the door on the light afternoon breeze. A notice that reads “This structure is considered unfit for human occupancy” is posted on the front door of one home.
    The houses are all located on Isabella Street in Rotterdam Junction, a quiet side street badly damaged in the fl ooding caused a year ago by tropical storms Irene and Lee. Recently, volunteers from the Flood Recovery Coalition for Schenectady County cleaned out the houses, even though the owners appear unlikely to return. It was a different type of task for the group, whose primary focus is rehabbing homes to make them livable for families displaced by the fl ood.
    But the vacant homes were becoming too big a problem to ignore.
    They posed a worsening health and safety hazard, and something needed to be done. Mold and vermin were a growing problem, while thieves had stripped the homes of copper pipes.
    Flood Recovery Coalition coordinator Nathan Mandsager said the group expects to wrap up its work by the end of the year, and cleaning out the vacant properties is a way to “leave the community as safe as possible. … We got permis- sion [from the homeowners] to go in and clean them out so that they’re not just rotting.” He estimated that in Schenectady County at least 20 fl ood-damaged properties have been abandoned, about a dozen of them in Rotterdam Junction.
    More than a year after the fl ood, such vacant houses are becoming a growing concern. But for the volunteer groups coordinating much of the recovery, these houses are not a high priority — their objective is to assist people who intend to move back home.
    “The vacant homes have always been on our radar,” Mandsager said. “But our fi rst priority is rebuilding and getting people home. Now these homes are becoming more of an issue. People are saying, ‘What can we do about it?’ There was a big discussion about these homes at our leadership meeting.”
    Josh DeBartolo, who coordinates Schoharie Recovery, which focuses on rebuilding homes in the Schoharie Central School District, said about a third of the fl ooddamaged properties identifi ed by the coalition have had almost no work done to them. Many of these properties are now in foreclosure or for sale, he said.
    But DeBartolo said it’s unfair to say that the homeowners had simply thrown up their hands and walked away. Many of them would have liked to have returned home, but received flood insurance settlements they felt were inadequate and couldn’t afford to rebuild. Others have decided to apply to the federal government’s buyout program, which allows people at risk of future flooding to receive a payment in return for leaving their homes. DeBartolo said the buyouts won’t begin until spring, which means that many of these homes will remain vacant for months.
    “It’s very rare that a homeowner just left,” DeBartolo said. “It’s more of a situation where they went through the process, and couldn’t get the assistance they needed to return to their home.”
COMMUNITY IMPACT
    DeBartolo’s main concern is how the vacant homes impact the community, particularly residents who have opted to stay and those who are considering moving there. One of Schoharie Recovery’s goals is preventing population loss; if a family decides to leave, the group would like to see a new family move in. Deteriorating vacant houses could make it more diffi - cult to achieve this goal.
    Sarah Goodrich, executive of Schoharie Area Long Term, or SALT, echoed DeBartolo’s concerns, and said that the number of foreclosures on fl ood-damaged properties appear to be increasing.
    “If houses are just abandoned and go into foreclosure, that’s a big financial problem,” she said. “There are houses with locks on their doors from banks. Nobody can go in and do work.”
    Goodrich said people have been purchasing fl ood-damaged properties for rock-bottom prices and just letting them sit there. “There’s no sense of urgency because they bought them for so little,” she said. One person purchased four homes and put two of them back on the market when he discovered that local zoning laws wouldn’t allow him to convert them into boarding houses, she said.
    SALT is a nonprofi t organization that provides support and resources to the various fl ood recovery groups, civic organizations and agencies in Schoharie County and the Greene County town of Prattsville, with the goal of making the rebuilding process more efficient and coordinated.
STOCKADE ISSUES
Schenectady, but the group has no plans to clean them out, mainly because of the neighborhood’s status as a historic district. The Stockade is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and making visible alterations to the exteriors of buildings in the neighborhood requires permission from the city’s Historic District Commission.
    The Rev. Valerie Ackerman, head of the Neighborhood Watch program in the Stockade, said neighborhood residents are “very upset” about the vacant properties. “They get moldy and they smell, and they decrease the value of the homes next door,” she said.
    Ackerman said residents are particularly concerned about four vacant houses on Ingersoll Avenue and two on North Ferry Street. The ownership situations tend to be nebulous, which makes it harder for volunteers to get the permission needed to do interior work.
    For instance, one of the vacant homes is being foreclosed upon by the city, while another has been sold at auction and the new owner has done nothing with the property. “There’s no evidence that the front door as even been opened,” Ackerman said.
    “Because of the historic nature of the houses, we’d like these houses to be preserved,” Ackerman said. “But we’re concerned that if this goes on much longer, preservation won’t be possible. We want them to be turned over or purchased by someone who will be responsible.” .........................>>>>........................>>>>....................http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....r00102&AppName=1

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ROTTERDAM JUNCTION
Flood recovery group thanks church for space with paint
BY BETHANY BUMP Gazette Reporter

    Joyce Murray swept a brush down the rectory wall, crouching to reach the bottom half of a corner. The eggshell hue grew bolder with each flick of her wrist.
    Instinctively, she rested a paint-speckled hand on her thigh.
    “It’s quite a canvas, isn’t it?” she said, looking down at her blue jeans. They were covered in splotches of white, tan and orange paint, a few drops of pink and green.
    They’re just one pair of pants out of four that Murray wears when helping with flood recovery in Rotterdam Junction. They’ve served her well the last 16 months, as she painted new ceilings, walls and window trim at freshly rebuilt homes.
    On Saturday, she put them to use for a different kind of spruce job — this time at the St. Margaret of Cortona Church rectory on Main Street, effectively the command center for all recovery efforts in the Junction since massive flooding upended lives here in August 2011.
    The little rectory behind the church played a crucial role in this hamlet’s rebuilding. The Flood Recovery Coalition for Schenectady County moved in, taking over the church’s administrative space at a time when the community needed a single base of operations for volunteers to meet and mobilize, contractors to check in and figure out what jobs to go to, residents to stream in and out with questions, uncertainties and fears.
    “I would come out here sometimes four days a week, sometimes none,” said Murray, of Ballston Lake. “I would just show up to volunteer, and whatever needs to be done I’d do. It was really imperative that we had this space, because a lot of people would just come out and much of the time, Monday through Saturday, somebody was here to help.”
    The move to the rectory happened around mid-October 2011, when the Junction and other parts of Schenectady County realized they needed somewhere other than the volunteer fi re department to house a long-term recovery base.
    At the height of recovery efforts, Nathan Mandsager was spending 12 hours a day at the rectory.
    “I’d get here early morning and there would be a dozen contractors coming through either to mobilize or to grab lunch,” said the Flood Recovery Coalition coordinator. “When people needed materials or needed to know where to go, they came here. We had crisis counselors use this space for counseling, meeting with residents to go through their fi nances, fi gure out their plan for rebuilding. And then we had volunteers and volunteers and then more volunteers.”
GIVING BACK, AGAIN
    But over the last six months, as more fl ood-affected homes have been completely rebuilt, Mandsager and his staff began to wonder how they could repay the church for letting them use the rectory all this time.
    “We really took over this whole house,” he said. “They opened this up to us, and it’s been a while since this building has had a spruce-up. So we figured, you know, while we’re finishing up our work with residents and finalizing things, let’s do a final paint job here.”
    The coalition also raised donations to buy new doors for the church garage, which was transformed into a warehouse for lumber, tools and other supplies.
    From a stepladder, Carol Fallon extended an arm to reach the top of an office wall with her paint roller. Beneath her the floor is covered in newspaper and behind her two desks are covered in plastic. About 15 other volunteers mingle throughout the rectory, fi lling holes and coating walls in fresh paint.
    She’ll be here until at least August, when phase two of the state’s disaster case management program wraps up. As a disaster case manager with Catholic Charities of the Albany Diocese, it’s Fallon’s job to answer questions, address any unmet needs and help residents fi nd the social services they might still need more than a year after the fl oods.
    Frankly, she said, it was a bit of a relief for her to have the rectory as the community’s command center. The Rev. Michael Hogan and church secretary Amy Smart were often helpful in her getting to know the residents. .....................>>>>...........................>>>>.....................http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....r00903&AppName=1

Quoted from GrahamBonnet

did someone from the town board apologize yet?