Most Orangetown Roads Opened Monday

Sections of Gilbert Avenue and Sickletown Road in Pearl River were still reported as closed as of 1 p.m.

Those are among the few roads in Orangetown still closed due to damage caused by Hurricane Irene.

"We were in pretty good shape," said Orangetown Highway Superintendent James Dean. "We were able to maintain the roads pretty well during the storms. There are the normal areas we have flooding long the Pascack and Muddy Creek in Pearl River and Sparkill Creek in Orangeburg. We had the normal flooding areas, but that receded pretty quickly."

Dean said workers began at 2 a.m. Sunday and were out until 11 p.m. that night. Most of the roads are still open, though in some areas downed wires have caused delays. Crews are still working on cleanup.

"At one time, we had maybe 10 (town) roads closed," Dean said. "Route 340 South of Oaktree is still closed due to trees in the wires. That's a state road. there is still a section of Earhart Road closed. O&R has to get a tree out of the wires.

"We've made pretty good progress."

The Rockland County Highway Department had four closures in Orangetown, including West Washington Avenue where flooding covered the road. Rockland County Highway Superintendent Charles H. Vezzetti said that was done as a precaution until engineers could inspect the bridge.

"Any time water tops the roadway, out of precaution, we close the road so we can examine the bridge structure," Vezzetti said. "It took a while for the water to come down. We got it open (Monday) about eight or nine (a.m.)."

Vezzetti said that sections that the sections of Gilbert and Sickletown were both closed to wait for trees to be removed from power lines.

"Orangetown got off fairly light compared to other storms," Vezzetti said. "Sparkill Creek overtopped, but in Floyd it took two days for it to go down. By Monday morning, it was completely passable by Oaktree Road."

"We don't have close to the amount of damage we had from Floyd," Dean said. "Some of that is we made corrections of problems we had during Floyd. Hopefully, the repairs held up. I also don't think we got the same volume of rain as we did in Floyd."