Town of Nichols to start $4.3 million project

The Governor’s Office of Storm Recovery and the Town of Nichols recently announced the start of a $4.2 million construction project to relocate the Town’s Highway Garage, flooded during Tropical Storm Lee and Hurricane Irene, to a site outside of the floodplain. The garage stores critical highway equipment and supplies, and provides office space for Department of Public Works staff. Construction will begin this month and is expected to take a year to complete.

The garage relocation project, which is funded with $3 million in State money and $1.2 million from the Town, is one of hundreds moving forward thanks to the New York Rising Community Reconstruction Program. 

In the aftermath of Hurricane Irene, Tropical Storm Lee and Superstorm Sandy, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo established the GOSR New York Rising Community Reconstruction program to empower residents and business owners in the recovery and resiliency process.

The new garage, which will be flood resilient, will have five truck bays, a truck lift, two bathrooms, the DPW Superintendent’s office, a break room, one work bay/wash station, salt and sand storage, and space for a chipper, grader, loader, trailer, mower, rock rake, tire supplies, and fuel.

On Sept. 7, 2011, Tropical Storm Lee stalled over the Southern Tier and dropped over 11 inches of rain on Tioga County during a 24-hour period. Torrential rains, compounded by saturated soil and a swollen Susquehanna River from Hurricane Irene, which occurred the week of Aug. 28, 2011, led to record high water levels. 

In Nichols, rising waters of both the Susquehanna River and Wappasening Creek caused severe flash flooding that damaged homes, businesses and infrastructure. High groundwater levels caused most of the basements and ground floors of homes, businesses and municipal facilities to flood, even though those structures were behind levees. 

Flooding closed many critical roads, leaving residents with no access to medical facilities, supplies or the Tioga County emergency response team. A member of the Nichols volunteer fire department reported that respondents had to rescue several people located along Route 282 using a front loader, and that during the first 24 hours of the storm, the fire department performed water rescue to save an additional 72 residents. 

Residents stated the floodwaters rose so quickly they did not have enough warning to evacuate, or were not sure of where to go. They also stated that once the flood waters had receded, the community still did not have power or cell phone coverage and there was no way for the Town and Village to communicate with residents to let them know where to find emergency supplies, bottled water, and other essential storm recovery information.

Altogether, more than 650 New Yorkers served on 66 NYRCR planning committees across the State and have together proposed hundreds of projects inspired the unique needs and assets of their regions. Collectively, NYRCR committees have held 650 planning meetings and 250 large-scale public engagement events as they have worked to rebuild sustainable communities and reinforce infrastructure, mitigate the risks of loss and damage associated with future disasters, and spur revitalization.

Established in June 2013, GOSR coordinates Statewide recovery efforts for Superstorm Sandy, Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee. Through its NY Rising Community Reconstruction Program – as well as its NY Rising Housing Recovery, Small Business, Infrastructure and Rebuild By Design programs – GOSR invests $4.5 billion in federal Community Development Block Grant–Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) funding to better prepare New York for extreme weather events. 

More information about GOSR and its programs is available online at http://stormrecovery.ny.gov/.