[New York Times] NYC DEP - Flooding

http://select.nytimes.com/2006/02/05...wns.html?8hpib



Our Towns
Floodwaters Reveal a Divide Between Upstate and Down

By PETER APPLEBOME

Published: February 5, 2006
GODEFFROY, N.Y.

[photo]

Librado Romero/The New York Times
Homes near Meyers Grove in Orange County, flooded by the Neversink River
last year, are still a long way from being back to normal.
===============================

EVEN before last April's disastrous floods, the Meyers Grove neighborhood
along the Neversink River wasn't exactly Malibu, just an unpretentious
jumble of modest houses, trailers and bungalows, many of them converted from
summer vacation cottages.

But 10 months after the river roared over its banks, cresting at 11 feet
over flood stage, it still looks like parts of New Orleans, with some houses
repaired and rebuilt, some vacant and condemned, and others reduced to
doleful piles of rubble, waiting to be hauled away.

Last year's flooding on the Delaware River and some of its tributaries,
including the Neversink, may be a fleeting memory downstate, but for
residents in Meyers Grove, along Rivers Edge Road down the road in nearby
Huguenot and in dozens of other riverside towns and hamlets, it's no more
past than Katrina is for residents of the Gulf Coast.

So, if Mark D. House, the supervisor of the Town of Deerpark in Orange
County, whose 9,000 residents include the people of Meyers Grove, sounds a
little hyperbolic as he talks about reservoir levels and spillway
management, it's not just him. This is one subject where the
upstate/downstate divide is now more divided than ever.

"It's like they're holding a gun to my head, it's loaded, they have their
finger on the trigger, and they're squeezing the trigger," he said,
navigating his way around the neighborhood in his PT Cruiser. "And they have
the gall to say, oh, by the way, if this should go off, it's not our fault
and it's not our responsibility."

Eddy Long? Did you ever live in Springfield, Mass?

Dave LaCourse

Dave LaCourse wrote in
:

Eddy Long? Did you ever live in Springfield, Mass?

Long Eddy on the Delaware probably.

Dave LaCourse wrote:
Eddy Long? Did you ever live in Springfield, Mass?

Dave LaCourse

I think he roomed with Hector LaFleur.

--
Cut "to the chase" for my email address.

On Sun, 05 Feb 2006 19:29:41 GMT, rw
wrote:

I think he roomed with Hector LaFleur.

Nope. Eddy Long lived a couple of blocks away from me. Tough kid.
Hector (another tough kid) lived downstairs from me. He grew up to be
quite successful, and recently died.