The Force of Nature
During the Winter of 1996, a combination of heavy rains on deep snow caused flood damage equal, and in many ways greater, than what we saw these past weeks. At the time I was working as editor of another newspaper covering the region, and wrote the following editorial. A few weeks after its publication, U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan read the piece into the Congressional Record as part of his successful push to get funding for the region’s repair.
We include his preamble, as well as the piece, below... it goes far to show how we DO rebound from nature’s tragedies. Remember... it was in the year before these floods that the region was at its most bnitterly contentious, fighting over the possibility of the Catskills being named a UN Biosphere Region and unwanted regulation from New York City. And in the year following those floods, an historic Memorandum of Agreement between our towns and the city, plus a new era of funding and rebirth, had been started.
History does hold lessons...

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, last month the people of the Catskills region suffered some of the worst floods of their history. The waters swept away homes and property, roadways and bridges, schools, and businesses. There was injury and death. But the people endured with grace and courage and, as a recent editorial by Paul Smart in the Mountain Eagle attests, they have harnessed that same spirit to begin rebuilding their dreams. Mr. President, I ask that this editorial be printed in the Record
following my remarks.

The past week has been a wearying one for us here in the Catskills and Hudson Valley. Saturday saw us all battling against floodwaters. Sunday afternoon and Monday morning was a time of assessment and reassessment. By Tuesday, clean-up had begun.
Driving around our coverage region, which enfolds most of the damaged areas, the largeness of real disaster crept up on us. Snapping photos and gathering stories, we went from an unconscious comparison of one township's horrors to others to an almost overbearing sense of tragedy.
The damage is everywhere. The most visible cataclysms are the tip to a sad iceberg. Roads and bridges were damaged in nearly every township. Basements and yards and driveways, not to mention whole first floors and entire homes, have been trashed by the oft-forgotten force of nature. The damage totals, still being added up as we go to press, are staggering.
In the midst of all this, though, were incredible moments that defined man's hope, that characterized people's resilience better than any example we've encountered. Everyone chipped in to help each other. Battered business people and homeowners laughed at their fate, then vowed recovery. Outside help started pouring in. Bitterness was given no toehold amongst the destruction, except in a few hot-headed newspaper editorials that resulted from stress and pushed-deadlines..
Of course, much of this can be chalked up to the closeness between invigoration and enervation. There are times when one has no alternative but to look up. The call of the moment has been deafening; we've had no choice but to focus on the now, on the jobs at hand. It will only be later that the real pain of what we've been through will hit. We must prepare for then.
We must remember that the recent floods have proven our region's cohesion, at least in nature's eyes. And we must remember that it has only been through our shared efforts that we've come through all this. The outside world has not forsaken us, just as we have not forsaken each other.
Nature is a cruel mistress. We sometimes scoff at the ideas of 100-year flood plains that rule our planning documents, sometimes think that we've reached an age where our human efforts can thwart all. But then matters fall out of our hands. We are forced to realize where we live, what we must deal with for our choices. And when we rebuild our dreams, we must do so cogniscent of the tragedies that have preceded our actions.
Good times still lie ahead of us, just as they occupy our memories. As humans, we know how to persevere, how to rebuild and fortify. The future is always ours.
Please let us know what we can do to help. We care for this region. We know its days of glory have yet to come. And we bless all our angels for helping us through this past week: our local officials, our emergency volunteers, our neighbors and saviors. We even thank dear Mother Nature for having stopped the rain in time, and not repeated it, so the waters would abate and we could get on with the hard business of life.