Heavy rain sent floodwater across the Capital Region and Hudson Valley on Wednesday, and several communities responded by declaring states of emergency as roads closed, turned impassable or disappeared under standing water. In the City of Rensselaer, Michael DeFrancesco said the emergency would remain in place through 7 a.m. Thursday.
That declaration came as officials warned that travel could be extremely hazardous near lower Columbia Turnpike along Route 9 and Route 20, 6th Street near Hollow Park, and around creeks and streams, with low-lying areas near the Hudson River also facing unusually high tide. The same storm pushed Rensselaer County into a state of emergency, while the Town of Schodack reported closures on County Route 1, County Route 4, County Route 7, Route 150, U.S. 20, U.S. 9 and Route 9J, and the Town of Schodack said numerous roads were either closed or impassable.
The flooding was spread across the region rather than being confined to one municipality, and officials in several places tied their emergency orders directly to road closures and flash flooding. Greene County declared a state of emergency and told residents to stay home unless travel was essential, while the Town of Chatham set its declaration from 11 a.m. Wednesday until 11 a.m. Thursday because excessive rainfall had already flooded local, county and state roadways and could interfere with emergency response.
Montgomery County took a different tack. Pete Vroman declared a local state of emergency for the Town of Amsterdam to speed road and infrastructure repairs and help with recovery, but county officials also said there was no countywide travel advisory in effect. That left residents with one hand on the warning and the other on the calendar: emergency powers were already active in some places, yet the scale of damage and the pace of repairs still had to be sorted out road by road.
Elsewhere, the Village of Coxsackie reported flooding and washed-out roads, with the Mansion Street viaduct underwater as of 6 a.m. Wednesday. The Village of Castleton declared a state of emergency after multiple roads were deemed dangerous or impassable and its water delivery system building flooded, leading to a village-wide boil water order until further notice and a request that residents voluntarily restrict water use. The next step is not a new warning so much as a slow assessment: crews now have to reopen roads, repair infrastructure and determine how much of the damage will linger after the water drops.
