On Tuesday, SEMO pegged the damage to public property in the Delaware County town at about $5 million - far short of the number for the Federal Emergency Management Agency to step in. Now that number has climbed to "a little more than $20 million," Michalski said.
That estimate for public property only refers to roads and bridges, debris removal and the emergency response, Michalski said.
SEMO has not yet assessed the damage to 150 homes because several roads have been impassable.
The damage to personal property along the 4-mile stretch north of Roscoe also has been staggering. The latest count has 33 homes, mobile homes and other structures destroyed. Another 12 homes have had major damage, and six with minor damage.
Numerous cars and motorcycles were also flattened, or swept downstream.
About 99 percent of the damage is in Delaware County, along County Road 7 (Route 206 in Sullivan County) and town roads off Spring Brook, in an area known as Cat Hollow. A tiny amount is in the neighboring Sullivan County Town of Rockland.
COLCHESTER _ The towns of Colchester and Andes remain under states of emergency because of significant flooding June 19, according to a news release Tuesday from the Delaware County Department of Emergency Services.
County Route 7, also known as Cat Hollow Road and state Route 206, will be closed between Roscoe and Downsville for an undetermined amount of time. Many of the roads near county Route 7 have been devastated and are closed.
Delaware County 911 Coordinator and Deputy Emergency Services Director Steve Finch told MidHudsonNews.com today that early assessment of property damage just to Delaware County exceeds $5 million. That just pertains to county roads, bridges and other infrastructure that was damaged or destroyed. The raging floodwaters were so intense that they tore large slabs of pavement off roadways.
Two months worth of rain, up to eight inches pounded down late Tuesday in just two hours.
5:30 p.m. - Six people are missing and three are presumed dead after a flash flood washed away several homes and damaged bridges just north of the Sullivan County hamlet of Roscoe last night.recordonline: Photo Gallery: Flooding: Search and Rescue
Flood waters swept homes and cars away, ripped up pavement and dumped tons of mud and rocks along an 8-mile stretch of Route 206 from a mile north of Roscoe to Route 30 near the Pepacton Reservoir in the Delaware County Town of Colchester.
An elderly woman is presumed dead after an 8-foot-high wall of water away two trailer homes in Colchester. Gertrude Melvin was visiting her daughter when the storm hit. She was unable to reach a rescue rope and was killed after water swept her away, according to her family.
Melvin’s daughter, Elaine Finkle, is a 19-year employee in Sullivan County’s Office of the Aging. Finkle’s husband, George Finkle, works for New York State Electric & Gas. A trailer belonging to George’s parents, who lived next door, was also washed away. According to one of Elaine Finkle’s co-workers, the family lost their automobiles, their home and everything in it.
Also presumed dead are Fred and Marjorie Shutts, whose home was ripped off its foundation in the same area.
Paul Piatk, the Shutts’ neighbor, saw the couple standing on the porch around 7 p.m. An 8-foot wave swept their home away. Piatk said he saw state Trooper Joe Decker dive into the water, but Decker was forced to swim back to the bank.
“It was just a big, huge wave that swept everything away,” Piatk said. “The wave came down within two minutes; the garage, the car, the motorcycle, the wave just took it.”
Also, four homes were washed away by the floods. Residents of between 15 and 18 homes in Roscoe, at the Sullivan County border, were evacuated. Drivers along Route 7 had to be rescued from their cars.
Roscoe -- When Lajos and Susanna Erdos left a friend’s house in Walton in Delaware County to travel to their home to the Village of Ellenville in Ulster County Tuesday night, they had no idea what they would encounter on a road they have taken many times before.
The elderly Hungarian couple was driving on State Route 206 around 7:30 p.m. when they were met with heavy rain, then hail, then rising waters, all within minutes.
Mrs. Erdos said she told her husband to drive on the left side of the road just because it was rising so much quicker on the right, but within a few minutes, they had to pull over due to the quickly rising rush of water coming down the road. That is where they stayed for over night until being rescued early this morning.
“We sat there for 11 hours with little food or water, and the water was up to our waists,” Mrs. Erdos told MidHudsonNews.com while having a bite to eat at a Red Cross Disaster Relief Center setup at the Roscoe Middle School. “It was so terrifying. We didn’t think we were going to come out alive. We both thought that that was it for the both us.”
The two, both in their 80s, were rescued Wednesday morning and taken to the disaster relief center, where they said they would stay until Mrs. Erdos’ daughter who lives locally would pick them up and take them home to Ellenville.
Roads closed include Morton Hill, Jug Tavern, Campbell Mountain, Holiday Brook, Berry Brook and Beaver Hill roads, Route 7 from Downsville to Roscoe, and State Route 30 in the area.
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