County responds quickly to emergency

By TOM KANE

Sullivan County Director of Emergency Management Richard Martinkovic was ready when Ivan hit.

“I had my eyes opened a week before down in Westbrookville when a storm hit that community hard, so I was ready for the first signs of a storm,” Martinkovic said.

He said the county emergency plan went right into operation before the storm even hit.

“We had been in communication with the weather bureau in Binghamton a few days before the storm arrived,” he said.

At first, the bureau told him that only the area around Roscoe would be hit by any serious flooding.

“Then I got a call at 4:00 a.m. on Saturday morning telling me some bad news,” he said. “They said that the bridges in Roscoe and Cook’s Falls had reached their maximum water capacity and were in danger of breaking and that the storm had become a more serious and wider threat.”

At 5:30 a.m. the Livingston Manor flats were evacuated.

“We called Wurtsboro and Rock Hill departments to help us because they weren’t hit yet,” Martinkovic said.

Things started to happen fast after that.

“Then we informed the Jeffersonville Fire Department to expect more serious flooding,” he said.

He then called a meeting of county, state police, sheriff and Red Cross officials early Saturday morning to coordinate the response.

“We began planning the evacuation of homes along the Delaware from Long Eddy to Pond Eddy,” he said.

By 4:00 p.m., everything that was needed was in place.

A New York State Police helicopter began flights over the Delaware River from Hankins to Port Jervis to identify people in trouble.

Martinkovic denied that any water was released from the reservoirs.

“I don’t know where that rumor came from. That was never even considered,” he said.

On Sunday morning, he called a meeting of the supervisors for the river towns and Rockland and Roscoe to start the process of application for funding from the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) and the State Emergency Management Organization (SEMO).

Towns are to fill out applications to the agencies outlining the extent of the damage and estimating the cost of the storm immediately.

“Later, town residents can submit an application about damage to their properties,” Martinkovic said.

Forms can be obtained at town halls and submitted to the towns directly.

Wayne County Response

In Wayne County, residents along the river were asked to evacuate in hamlets from Equinunk to Damascus if they were close to the water’s edge. Residents in Welcome Lake were also asked to evacuate.

“There was a lot of damage to homes in low-lying areas along the river,” said Wayne County Emergency Management Coordinator Glen Gunusky.

Even Gunusky’s office in the cellar of the Wayne County Courthouse had to be evacuated.

“Water was coming over the wall and we had to move to another location, but we kept working,” he said.

Gunusky wished to commend the first responders and officials of the townships for their quick and effective responses.

“Our emergency plan worked very well,” he said. “We were able to respond quickly, which is most important.”

Gunusky was not able to state what the full extent of the road damage was, but it was considerable.

“Many roads were closed, or ditches were overflowing and culverts stopped up, but we were able to fix most of the big problems by Monday afternoon,” he said.