Yesterday, Governor Andrew Cuomo visited flood-ravaged Margaretville, for the third time since flooding began. A week ago, Cuomo and his aides were snapping cell phone pictures from his SUV while it forged through several feet of water in downtown Margaretville. This week, he returned with a small battalion of volunteers (through the "Labor For Your Neighbor" program) and additional National Guard troops to help clean up mud and debris on the village's Main Street.
The video above was shot and edited by Fred Margulies, and includes audio from a phone interview Cuomo did with Roxbury community radio station WIOX during the event. (It's synced to the video of Cuomo on the phone with the station. Neat trick.)
While Cuomo and dozens of volunteers shoveled and swept in the muggy late morning heat, some wearing face masks to keep out the fine dust swirling in the air, another Labor For Your Neighbor volunteer crew was laboring in nearby Arkville, which was also hit hard by flooding. (Fleischmanns, which has also gotten devastating flooding, did not get a crew; we hear from Watershed Post volunteer Andrea Girolamo, who was in Fleischmanns over the weekend, that they have a great need of volunteer manual labor.) Margaretville, Arkville and Fleischmanns are all part of the Town of Middletown.
We took some photographs in Margaretville, included below, and also shot a bit of video of the cleanup and of a service at the Catskill Mountain Christian Center in Margaretville. (It's nowhere near as nicely shot or edited as Fred Margulies's video. But it does have a bit more hallelujah in it.)
Photos below by Lissa Harris.
A military vehicle on Main Street, around 10:30am, awaits the arrival of Gov. Cuomo and the volunteer crew.
Middletown town justice Gary Rosa and his wife Lori watch the cleanup from the sidewalk outside Gary's office, which was badly flooded.
"I feel guilty watching people work," said Lori.
"I don't, for a change," said Gary. "We've been at it all week."
Across the street from Rosa's office is a block of buildings, with businesses on the ground floor and apartments upstairs, that have been evacuated and could be demolished.
"It's always the poorest of the poor who get hit the hardest," said Lori.
Water bottles for volunteers sit atop mud-caked debris on Main Street.
Midway through the cleanup, a National Guard officer barked orders for volunteers to stop and hydrate.
"We don't want anybody falling out from the heat," he said.
A National Guardswoman stands outside the Galli-Curci Theater.
Built in the 1920s, the historic Galli-Curci was named after opera singer Amelita Galli-Curci, who had a summer estate in the area and sang at the theater's opening night. It was later converted into a movie theater.
No movies have been shown at the Galli-Curci since 1985, although its present owners -- Jonathan Starch and David France, a Manhattan couple deeply involved in the film world -- bought it with the intention of renovating it and reopening it as a movie theater. Their plans were stymied in part by a lawsuit from an adjoining neighbor, who claims that he has legal rights to a few spruce trees on the property.
The building, which is currently empty apart from a small clothing store in the front and an apartment upstairs, is now for sale.
Volunteer Kate Burson, from Brooklyn, shovels mud hauled in buckets from the basement of the Galli-Curci into black plastic trash bags. It was Burson's first visit to Margaretville.
"It looks like, from what I've heard, it's coming together," she said.
Another volunteer shoveling nearby chimed in. "Thanks to the Governor for giving us the opportunity," she said. "People always want to do more."
Before holding an impromptu press conference, Gov. Andrew Cuomo razzed a small crew of reporters for not pitching in on the cleanup, saying that he'd talk to them if they'd promise to pick up a shovel afterwards.
"Do we have a deal? Say, 'Yes, Governor, we have a deal,'" he said.
After the press conference, he turned to a reporter trying to get one last question in.
"Shovel or broom? That's my question for you guys now."
David France, owner of the Galli-Curci building, unloads a bucket of mud from the basement onto a tarp.
"We were very lucky," he said. "We lost very little in the store. It's just a cleanup for us."
France said the theater building got 16 feet of water, which left behind four inches of mud in its wake. He said that until Sunday, he hadn't begun cleaning out his own building.
"We were volunteering at McIntosh's Auction yesterday, which is worse," he said.
Despite the foul-smelling mud spattering his clothes, France looked almost jaunty with his porkpie hat.
"You've got to make an impression at a time like this," he said, smiling.
Lawrence Cadet, 7, and his mother Mylan Denerstein, of Loudonville, take a break from shoveling. Denerstein is Cuomo's executive counsel, and has served as counsel to the New York Fire Department and as a federal prosecutor in Manhattan.
Lawrence, who had already been videoed for several news broadcasts that day, was unfazed by reporters' cameras.
His mother urged him to put on a face mask.
"You've got to finish your lollipop," she said. "I want you to be safe more than anything."
