Fort Plain

It was Friday morning, just after the sun had risen, and more than 4 inches of rain had already showered down on this riverside village of 2,300 since midnight.

That alone would have caused the Mohawk River and Otsquago Creek, which cuts across the Montgomery County village's main drags, to swell to their banks. What would end up crushing more than 100 homes and businesses here was unfolding miles away.

While sheets of rain whipped Fort Plain, storm clouds over the hilltop town of Stark, about 10 miles to the southwest, were twice as strong, with rainfall pounding at a rate of nearly 2 inches per hour. More than 7 inches of rain fell on Stark that morning. The soil was already soaked from a month of near-record rainfall, and the water had nowhere to go but downhill, into the valley to the east, into the Otsquago.

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"We never had a chance," Montgomery County Undersheriff Jeffrey Smith said. "No one saw it coming. And if they did, I don't know what we could have done to stop it."

The flash floods that battered Fort Plain offer a glimpse at not only how fast nature can nearly sweep away a town, but how runoff from high elevations several towns over can be just as, if not more, devastating to communities nestled in valleys. The storms left many here to wonder if anything could have been done to allay the damage, or to prevent it from happening again.

"Do we have a perfect system? No," Montgomery County Emergency Management Director Adam Schwabrow said. "Is there a perfect system? Probably not."

In August 2011, the town of Prattsville and other communities in the Schoharie Valley saw their Main Streets nearly wiped off the map during Tropical Storm Irene. Though a foot of rainfall pummeled those towns and villages, hydrologists said the runoff from the Catskills and other hills above helped trigger the violent torrents that ripped up sidewalks and leveled homes. Many of those communities are still reeling and recovering.

The mood in Fort Plain on Wednesday was a mix of resilience, frustration and hope. The vile stench of mud and rot wafted through buildings and homes as people continued to sift through soiled belongings. Crews of volunteers and emergency responders worked hard to help whoever needed a hand. Amish neighbors in horse-drawn carriages clomped through the streets to offer their assistance.

Some displaced homeowners came to the village's makeshift command center in frustration, asking how to get federal aid. FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, won't be able to help until a $26.4 million damage assessment threshold from the storm is reached. Schwabrow said he believed damage from the flood would reach that level, but not until more assessments were completed in neighboring towns.

Jessica Ford, an assistant manager at Save-A-Lot, one of the town's two grocery stores, spent her morning pushing dirt out of the storefront with an old shovel. The store was underwater by the time she arrived just before 7 a.m. Friday. The entire inventory, more than $200,000 of food and goods, was wiped out. "A 100 percent loss," she said.

One death was attributed to the floods. Ethel Healey, 87, was swept away with the currents into the Otsquago. Neighbors and authorities had told her to leave, but she stayed inside.

Her body was found late Monday. On Wednesday, Sen. Chuck Schumer visited with Healey's family.

Some people in the village have been critical of the county's reverse 911 system, saying it did not notify some homes until well after the flood had already peaked. Smith, the undersheriff, said the town began sending its calls out around 6:10 a.m., but some homes did not receive them until more than an hour later.

The system sends out 30-second calls to warn people of danger at a rate of 25,000 calls per hour. That pace was slowed, Smith said, because emergency calls piled up in the county's dispatch center during the storm.

"We had calls coming in for people stranded every other minute, if not faster," Smith said.

Ford, who has lived in Fort Plain for seven years, says she thinks the village and county did their best.

"If there was something more they could have done, they would have done it," Ford said. "It was a flash flood. The creek had just had enough. There was nothing anyone could do."

That day's forecast for the Mohawk Valley called for 2 inches of rain, with heavier rainfall to the east. Smith, a lieutenant with Fort Plain's volunteer fire department, was one of the first responders to arrive after the initial call for flooding in the village went out at 5:57 a.m.

Less than 10 minutes later, Smith was stranded, landlocked at the corner of Reid and Abbott streets. The intersection became an island, and he was stuck there for three hours.

Smith spent much of the time comforting nervous homeowners. Two other police officers were stranded while knocking on doors telling people to leave for higher ground.

Smith said an airboat made more than a dozen rescues.

"It all happened in minutes, seconds," Smith said. "It was just so fast. We did all we could." 518-454-5414 @BFitzgeraldTU.