Sullivan County Manager David Fanslau issued the following statement: Pursuant to my authority, a State of Emergency is hereby declared at 12:00 pm, Monday, October 29, 2012 in the County of Sullivan and will continue through 12:01 am Thursday, November 1, 2012. The State of Emergency has been declared due to extensive wind conditions and possible flooding from Hurricane Sandy over a period of approximately 72 hours, resulting in potential substantial injury and damage to residences, buildings, businesses, roads, bridges and utilities within the affected areas, and other as yet undetermined damage. Such conditions may threaten or imperil the public safety of citizens of the County of Sullivan.

All public school districts, private schools, and preschool/daycare programs shall close upon this declaration, and remain closed through Tuesday, October 30, 2012. An assessment for subsequent days will be made in collaboration with the school districts, by Tuesday evening, after assessing the damage to public infrastructure and power outages as a result of Hurricane Sandy.

The public should remain off roadways and indoors during the effective time of this declaration, with the exception of essential, healthcare providers, and emergency services personnel, particularly from 2:00pm, Monday, October 29th through 5:00am, Wednesday, October 31st, subject to further emergency instructions during the storm.

The National Weather Service (NWS) in Binghamton has continued a Flood Watch effective Monday morning through Tuesday evening, and a High Wind Warning effective from 2:00 PM Monday to 5:00 PM Tuesday for Sullivan County. The peak storm impacts for Sullivan County will be 10:00 PM Monday through 2:00 AM Tuesday. Hurricane Sandy will continue to move northward along the East coast, and is expected to turn westward to landfall along the New Jersey coast Monday, before entering Central Pennsylvania early Tuesday morning.