KEENE — Kristen Friedman was due for a second round of chemotherapy just a few days after Tropical Storm Irene tore through the North Country.
She was stranded in Keene — her treatment was in New York City.
Friedman, who lives in the Big Apple, was among others from there who'd thought they'd escape the wrath of the storm in the Adirondacks.
Those two families were near the end of their vacations in Keene as the storm closed in.
At the time, New York City was projected to take the brunt of the storm, and Keene looked like a safe haven. When they were later trapped by rising waters and washed-out roads, they saw firsthand how locals in this town rise to the occasion and show true community spirit, even to total strangers.
RESILIENT RESIDENTS
Stories of this sort abounded in the aftermath of the storm, and students from Burlington College came here to chronicle them while they were still fresh in people's memories.
The class project will eventually be donated to the Adirondack Museum in Blue Mountain Lake.
For four hours, students Allie Burke of Vernon, Conn., and Colin Donaghey of Middlebury, Vt., along with oral-history-and-audio-documentary instructor John Warren, welcomed residents from Keene and the surrounding communities, who shared their stories in the Community Center.
Many spoke of the devastation wreaked by the storm, but most came back around to the sense of community shown by the residents and the resilience they have seen in the days, weeks and months that followed the August 2010 storm.
'EXTRAORDINARY'
"There is a lot of pain out there, but this is a good-news story," said Daniel Mason of Keene during his interview. "We did see the Town of Keene do a good thing."
It was Mason who had offered to share his home with one of the families from New York City. When the power later went out at the cabin where the second family was staying — as it did throughout the region — he hosted both families in his generator-powered home.
Lorraine Yamin of New York City marveled at the power of the storm, while still thinking her home town was getting the worst of it.
"It was extraordinary to see the river, to hear the rain and to be in that constant rain downfall and to think that the storm was somewhere else.
"But the storm was here."
ROAD REBUILT
By that Monday, the realization of what the storm had done to Keene started to become apparent to everyone. Though Mason's house sustained no damage, the Ausable River had washed his road completely away.
Nobody thought Friedman could ever be able to keep that appointment for chemotherapy.
That morning, however, Yamin said, workers showed up and the rebuilding began.
"The next morning, the way the construction vehicles came ... first, there was one, then maybe two, then there were three, then there were five.
"By the end of the day, there were like seven, I think. It took all day, but they did, in fact, rebuild that road."
"People went above and beyond," Friedman said. "It was amazing to see how much work they did.
"I wasn't even one of their local businesses."
'YOU UNHOOK'
Yamin, Friedman and their families made it home safely and in time for Friedman's chemotherapy.
Now, with the storm fading some from memory, the families are already planning next summer's trip to their Adirondack sanctuary.
"One of the most striking, incredible things is to return to the Adirondacks because there is this feeling that it doesn't change," Yamin said.
"All of life changes at this wicked pace, and you go to the Adirondacks and you unhook. We want to have this feeling that we're in these mountains that don't change."
Now those families from the city appreciate that the Adirondacks are more than mountains and fields; the people who live here help to make the place what it is.
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