KEENE — Ravaged roads, flattened houses, shock and disbelief offered an unspoken declaration of disaster here Monday.
The Main Street thoroughfare in Keene was in ruins, buildings ripped apart, asphalt twisted and skewed and carried away by water generated by Tropical Storm Irene.
All that remained of the Keene Fire Hall were two overhead doors and one section of the parking bay.
The fire station was consumed Sunday by the swift rise and rage of Gulf Brook.
A mobile home — cocked sideways, half-shredded — stood yanked off its Main Street foundation, potted summer flowers on the deck blooming and unmoved.
A smell of diesel fuel rose from the muddy street.
The Gulf Brook Bridge at the "Y" turn to Route 9N lay broken in two.
The brightly colored Tip-a-Canoe restaurant sign sat crashed on its side in an 8-foot crevasse made as the East Branch of the Ausable River — and its normally babbling tributaries — made a river out of Main Street.
"I don't believe it," Bunny Torrance said after climbing carefully down the steep entrance to Hurricane Road from her home above.
The life-long resident took one look at the Fire Hall and stopped.
"This is incredible," she said. "I didn't expect this when I came down."
The Torrance family, like many others, had to walk into town, cut off from power and communication.
RAGING BROOK
Hurricane Road, with its winding, paved curves past the Town Hall, was shredded by floodwaters, an entire 30-foot section of road just plain gone.
Gulf Brook bubbled on its new path through the road Monday.
"Right now, we can only get down 9N as far as Styles Brook. At least one home on Styles Brook Road is gone," Keene Supervisor Bill Ferebee said shortly after 8 a.m., as town officials, fire personnel, highway-department crews and emergency services staff came and went from a busy emergency command center at the Town Hall.
Five people in two homes were pulled from the rising threat of Styles Brook Sunday.
Firefighter Bob Hickey went in on a four-wheeler from the road above and made two trips, firefighters said, rescuing first three and then two others from two houses that were shortly afterward consumed by the raging brook.
HORSES RESCUED
The devastation was astonishing.
For more than 100 yards, Style Brook Road was a mass of huge timbers, tangled roots and chunks of houses.
Heavy equipment could not get anywhere near the spot Monday to start clearing because the road below was broken in pieces, power lines dangled over water running in a 3-inch sheet across it and pouring into the East Branch.
Many rescues spared life and property from the angry brown waters in Sunday's deluge.
Linda Deyo had led her two horses across Route 9N and away from the rising river.
A line on her Route 9N living room window Monday showed a watermark at least 3 feet high.
"And that line is inside," she said.
"That's where the barn was," she pointed to a bare slab of cement.
"When I got the first horse (Kahn) out, the water was up to here," Deyo said, reaching to her knees.
"By the time I was bringing (Fiddle) the second one across, it was about to here," she pointed to her hip.
Monday, the equine pair grazed, apparently unfazed, in the green pasture across the road.
"They were reasonable; they let me lead them. They weren't rearing or anything," she said.
"I couldn't believe the whole barn went. The flood in 1976 was bad. But this was worse."
'OVERWHELMING'
The destruction in Keene was still being tallied.
Mark Westcott, representative for Congressman Chris Gibson, made his way down Main Street early Monday.
Gibson would be in town today, he said.
"We'll be assessing damage and providing info through the State Emergency Management Office for the governor's appeal to President (Barack) Obama.
"We certainly would like to see this mess taken care of," he said.
Irene dropped 11 steady inches of rain in Keene as the rivers rose.
Firefighters were able to get fire trucks and some equipment out of the station before watching helplessly as the river tore it apart.
Nancy Piserchia, whose son Mike is a firefighter, stood beside what was left of the mobile home on Main Street they had rented out.
"I saw all the water in the backyard," she said, nodding to a rocky bed of stones left by the water's torrent.
"I called the couple who lived there and told them to come and get everything out," she said.
"This is just overwhelming."
Mrs. Piserchia hugged her son.
SENSE OF RESOLVE
The hamlet of Keene Valley fared better, but not by much.
As the damage assessment got fully underway, large sections of Route 73 south of the hamlet were gone just past the AuSable Club entrance.
The Keene Valley Hardware store sustained heavy damage, along with several other private properties. Eleven people were rescued as John's Brook rose Sunday in Keene Valley.
In all, 10 people were rescued in the hamlet of Keene and taken to an emergency shelter at the Community Center.
A sense of resolve seemed to emerge as the waterways crept back between their banks.
Joy McCabe, a long-time resident of Hurricane Road, made her way on foot, stepping through the debris, walking more than a mile to Deyo's house.
"Should we get the shovels and help?" she asked.
"I guess. Mine are gone," Deyo said, waving toward the empty barn slab.
In the Emergency Command Center, Keene Fire Chief Jody Whitney conferred with other emergency personnel.
Bunker gear sat folded over boots standing in corners, drying.
"At least we have no report of fatalities," the chief said.
"We have to rebuild."
Email Kim Smith Dedam at: kdedam@pressrepublican.com
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