Irene was a tropical storm, not a hurricane, by the time it hit Essex County on Sunday, but it still packed a powerful punch.
Bridges and dozens of roads - including highways connecting Lake Placid, Keene and Wilmington - were closed due to flooding and washouts, homes were evacuated, high winds toppled trees onto power lines, the county's emergency radio system was off the air, many people were stranded by the high water, and the county was in a state of emergency.
Essex County Emergency Services Director Donald Jaquish said the impact of Irene was much more severe than he expected. He said the flooding is worse than what hit the county this spring.
"This is big; it's certainly a big one," Jaquish said late Sunday night. "It's just a severe situation for our county right now."
While the damage was widespread, some of the worst was reported along the AuSable River and its branches. Jaquish said Keene and Keene Valley, on the East Branch of the AuSable, were hit the hardest and that the Keene fire station was swept away by the floodwaters.
"In Keene and Keene Valley both, evacuations have been taking place, and we're preparing to do evacuations in Upper Jay," Jaquish said. "We're anticipating severe flooding in the hamlet of AuSable Forks due to the unprecedented cresting of the East Branch of the AuSable River."
Whole trees, uprooted, clog the rivers in spots. Jaquish said at least two bridges in the town of Keene were washed away, and officials were concerned about the safety of other bridges.
Portions of state Route 73 in Keene, Keene Valley and Lake Placid were shut down, as was state Route 86 between Lake Placid and Wilmington. Route 73 was also closed at Adirondack Northway Exit 30, according to Essex County's website, and a section of the Northway between exits 31 and 32 was closed due to concerns that a bridge could fail due to the flooding.
Meanwhile, West Branch AuSable flooding caused the closure of Route 73 from Lake Placid to Keene. It was open to local traffic only, as of this morning, but there was no way to get to Keene via Route 73.
The bridge beside the ski jumps in Lake Placid was still covered by water this morning. There was a pile of trees and tree branches against the bridge 50 feet wide and 20 feet high, and the parking lot by the ski jumps was covered with 4 inches of mud.
Nearby, River Road in the town of North Elba was closed from Mountain Lake Children's Residence to state Route 86 as of this morning, according to the county's Emergency Services website. At least two people and seven horses had to be evacuated due to flooding on the West Branch Sunday night.
There was reportedly 4 feet of water on River Road Sunday night. The top layer of pavement was washed away on several sections of road. There are washouts on the side of the road, plus areas where the pavement sank.
Chris Ruocco spent the night on River Road at his parents' house.
"The road was flooded and washed out with water 4 feet deep at least as far down as the eye could see," Ruocco said. "I've never seen anything like it in my whole life. ... The destruction is amazing, really amazing."
Route 86 between Lake Placid and Wilmington will be closed "for an extended period of time" due to a washout where crews were working on a culvert, on the Lake Placid side of Wilmington Notch, Lake Placid fire driver Greg Hayes said this morning.
Hayes said the bridge on Adirondack Loj Road that's closest to the Loj was washed out, cutting off access to the popular hiking destination from Route 73.
There are also 14 roads closed in the town of Jay, including the heavily trafficked Route 86 between Upper Jay and Jay, and state Route 9N between Upper Jay and AuSable Forks.
Both branches of the AuSable River were still well above flood stage this morning. The West Branch was at 11.64 feet as of 7:38 a.m., and the East Branch was at 9.61 feet as of 7:23 a.m., according to Andrew Loconto, a meterologist with the National Weather Service in Burlington, Vt. Flood stage is 7 feet.
However, both branches had already crested. Loconto said they are expected to drop gradually throughout the day and return to below flood stage around midnight.
Both readings were taken in AuSable Forks, where the branches of the river split.
Essex County has declared a state of emergency. The county government center is closed today, and all non-essential employees have been asked to stay home.
More than 100 roads in the county were closed because of flooding, washouts and high water threatening bridges, Jaquish said Sunday night.
"Right now our biggest issue is there are areas of the county where we cannot take people to a hospital because there's no way to get them there," he said. "They're cut off, isolated. If there's a life-threatening situation where we feel they're in danger due to river flooding, we're going to have to move them. But if not, we're going to have them stay where they are."
Jaquish said he believes the county's public safety radio system went down because the storm knocked out a microwave link on Wells Hill in the town of Lewis. Crews tried to access the site but the road was completely washed out, he said.
More than 4,100 New York State Electric and Gas customers and 5,000 National Grid customers in Essex County were without power as of this morning, according to information posted on the utility companies' websites.
There were also numerous outages in Lake Placid Municipal Electric's service area. Some people had power restored as of this morning, but there were also still numerous outages.
The only areas of Essex County serviced by National Grid locally are the town of St. Armand, the village of Saranac Lake and portions of the town of North Elba. There were no outages there this morning, according to National Grid's website.
