CHENANGO COUNTY – Local, state and federal emergency management officials now estimate that more than $600,000 worth of damage was done to local and county roads in the areas of Chenango County hardest hit by severe storms over the last few weeks.
“It appears that we’re going to get a disaster declaration,” reported Matt Beckwith, deputy director of Chenango County’s Emergency Management Office.
On Monday, Beckwith accompanied investigators from FEMA and the State Emergency Management Office (SEMO) on a tour of Oxford, Coventry and Greene, the three southern Chenango townships which sustained the most significant damage from flash flooding during the recent storms. The contingent also included Chenango County Director of Public Works Randy Gibbon, Norwich Emergency Management Officer A. Wesley Jones and highway superintendents from each of the three towns.
What they found between those municipalities and damage to the county highway system were sufficient to well exceed Chenango’s disaster threshold of $160,000, Beckwith said.
“Probably a third of (the $600,000 estimate) is on the highway system,” reported Gibbon.
One of the hardest hit is County Road 38 in the Town of Guilford, between its intersection with Depot Street and County Road 35. According to the county highway head, debris from the storms on Aug. 9 and 10 filled in inlet structures, blowing out pavement and washing out the shoulder. His department is working with other agencies to not just repair the damage, but to provide a long-term solution to the problem by building a detention structure uphill, he said, to prevent similar episodes in the future.
County Road 3 in the Town of Oxford also sustained substantial damage near its terminus on Route 12. While crews were able to reopen the road to traffic shortly after the first storm, their fix was temporary, Gibbon explained, as they waited to obtain permits from the Underground Facilities Protective Organization (UFPO) needed to address subsurface issues.
“We’re just finally getting those clearances,” he said.
Shoulder work remains to be done along other portions of 3, as well, according to Gibbon. “We’re trying to get the worst ones done first.”
County crews have completed much of the work needed on County Road 17 already, he added, which included repairing roughly 300 feet of the shoulder near the county route’s intersection with 206 in the Town of Bainbridge which was washed out by the storm. Debris and shoulder damage also account for the repair work needed on County Road 27, also known as the Oxford-Coventry Road.
According to Gibbon, as many as four sections of County Road 32 between Oxford and Greene were heavily damaged during the storms.
“The blacktop held. That’s what saved us,” Gibbon said, referring to the biking/walking trail which added a hard shoulder to the roadway last year. Although the area underneath the guardrail and beyond were washed out, he said he believed without that added protection, the damage could have been much worse.
The team also visited town-maintained roads in each of the three townships. Of particular note, he said, was the damage on Moran Road in the Towns of Oxford and Coventry.
“Both ends of that road got hit pretty hard,” he explained, describing an 800-foot section of the road which had been completely washed out leaving the guardrail hanging near the Oxford end of the road. At the opposite end, in the Town of Coventry, town crews had repaired a major washout near the bridge just north of where the road intersect 206.
Watrus Road in the Town of Greene, a seasonal road which intersect with County Road 9/Page Brook Road, was another Gibbon noted as sustaining a significant amount of damage from the high waters and debris which accompanied the heavy storms.
