Greece Town Supervisor Bill Reilich has put a State of Emergency back in place for the town with the National Weather Service predicting a new round of Lake Ontario flooding this evening.
Reilich’s office says this is not a travel ban, but people are urged to stay off waterfront roads like Edgemere Drive which could potentially flood as wind driven waves begin coming ashore this evening and tonight.
With that hit expected from flooding overnight, Governor Andrew Cuomo came to Manny Burgio’s lakefront home in Greece to say the state and local governments are doing all they can.
The governor, County Executive Cheryl Dinolfo and Greece Supervisor Bill Reilich all said they’re pushing the International Joint Commission again to release more water from Lake Ontario. They especially want the ICJ to learn from this year’s flooding and do something to keep it from happening again, even if record-high rainfalls continue. All three say the regulators should have seen this coming and stepped up outflows during the winter when the heavier rains began. Cuomo says “they pulled the trigger too late and now they’re trying to play catch-up.”
Governor Cuomo says the state is closely watching tests of portable rubber flood dams which have been set up around low-lying areas in Greece. When they’re pumped full of water, they create a five-foot high flood wall. If they work well to protect shoreline homes and roads, Cuomo says he’ll ask the state legislature to invest in a number of them before the session ends this month. Cuomo says he’s also calling on the Army Corps of Engineers to permanently bulkhead the shore off low-lying areas in the shoreline counties. Cuomo says this situation will happen again, and the work takes a long time, so we’d better start now.
The governor also says the state will reimburse the Town of Greece its full costs to date for dealing with the flooding situation, amounting to some . Town crews have been running 24-7 and the town has had to shell out about $500,000 it wasn’t planning to spend. Cuomo says he doesn’t want to see town property taxes go up, so he’d rather have the state cover it.
The state has programs offering homeowners up to $40,000 and small business owners up to $20,000 grants to cover expenses insurance won’t pay for. Cuomo confirms there are income restrictions and some have complained about the application process. He says they’re working to streamline it.
But the Governor says there is no way to make the water go down quickly, and everyone is stuck with this problem probably through the summer.