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© Vincent DiSalvio/The Journal NewsA pickup truck drives past an abandoned vehicle on a flooded South Pascack Road in Chestnut Ridge on Thursday.
Thursday's was an imperfect storm, especially in hard-hit Rockland County. It dumped huge amounts of rain, much of it when large numbers of motorists were in transit. On top of that, the heavy rain fell upon ground already saturated, making for more runoff than might have been expected. Ongoing construction projects added to the congestion and the runoff; delays with other projects make it even harder to cope with inordinately heavy rains.

Such heavy rains have been an especially vexing problem for Rockland. Twice in March the area got hit hard, with rains causing spot flooding. On March 6 and 7, five communities - Valley Cottage, West Nyack, Hillburn, Nanuet and Thiells - all recorded rainfalls of 4 inches or more; Thiells registered 5.28 inches. This time there was less rain and more flooding. New City, with 3.4 inches, was treading water; Nyack had a river running through it; West Nyack was awash, as were several other communities.

Major work needed

We've known for a decade or more that only major mitigation work is going to make a difference along the Hackensack and the Ramapo rivers. Both are multimillion-dollar projects that have been put off and delayed only to be postponed and delayed again. The result: Places like West Nyack and Suffern brace for the worst whenever there's a sustained storm or even a really heavy passing thunderstorm.

History tells us that the spot along Route 59 near the Palisades Center was flooding in the 1700s. It flooded before the mall and floods now. A Department of Transportation project that's now approaching $30 million has as one component raising 800 feet of Route 59 by 18 inches. That will help drainage, but only so much, and the state has been reluctant to turn that into more of a drainage project than a highway and bridge improvement project. What will be done - after nearly a decade of delays - won't be finished until 2013. Clarkstown on its own spent about $16 million over about five years on 90 drainage projects. But that, too, hasn't been enough, judging by downtown New City Thursday. Of course, these days, the question without an answer is, where will the money come from?

No lives lost

The good news was scarce - that there was no loss of life. There was much property damage. Many had adventures of a lifetime getting plucked from cars or shops filling with water. In many places, the financial losses will be substantial. Officials are now coordinating their efforts to secure state and federal relief funding. At Riverspace in Nyack, water and mud covered all but two rows of theater seats. A torrent flowed into Nyack Hospital, a mess complicated by the hospital setting and a local order to boil water.

That everyone made it through safely is also to the credit of our first responders - from police dispatchers through emergency medical personnel and volunteer firefighters. They all worked long and hard responding to emergency calls. Fortunately, there was no need to evacuate areas as was necessary in tropical storm Floyd, which seems to be the measuring stick for this latest flooding.
Better communication

A key in any emergency is communication and that broke down earlier in the week when Nyack was faced with that order to boil water before consumption. The automated calling system used as part of Reverse 911 broke down, stopping after a short burst of calls. The result was that many were late to get word of the order.

This area in particular, with its proximity to Indian Point, can't rely on the NY-Alert - the system run by the state Emergency Management Office - if it's not going to be reliable. We need to know that the public is getting the message, whether it's an order to boil water, or one to flee flood waters, or one alerting residents of a nuclear emergency.

There's much reassessment needed coming out of this storm and officials from local planning boards right through our Albany and Washington representatives need to be part of the process. We need to find solutions and the dollars to carry them out. Homeowners who pay some of the highest taxes going, only to get flooded over and over, deserve relief from their immediate losses and from the fear it will happen yet again.