NORWICH – Despite a reported estimate of $3.2 million in flood-related infrastructure damages to Chenango County, local officials say they aren’t even close to calculating the actual damages.
Public works crews were working around the clock repairing driveways, roads and bridges since last week’s record flood waters cost lives and saturated - and in some cases carried away - homes, bridges, roads and businesses.
“Randy’s people have been out every day trying to evaluate the damage, and there are places he can’t even get to yet,” Richard B. Decker, chairman of the board of supervisors, said Monday, referring to county Public Works Director Randy Gibbon.
Gibbon said late last week that he was unable to make an educated guess about how expensive the recovery will be locally because “we’ve never had anything like this to compare this to.” Public works crews had yet to see damages below the Town of Afton because of floods on county Route 26 and 7. State transportation regional engineer Tom Wiser said state DOT officials would start assisting locals with loss assessments this week.
Gibbon reminded individuals to document any kind of damages with photos and measurements prior to trying to fix them.
Washington declared eight counties in upstate New York, including Chenango County, federal disaster areas over the weekend, making money available to local governments to help pay for infrastructure repair and debris removal. Federal funding is also available on a cost-sharing basis - and available from certain private nonprofit organizations - for debris removal and emergency protective measures, including direct federal assistance.
Federal funding for individual losses was made available late Monday.
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