Amid widespread flooding, Seneca Lake fares the worst
"We woke up by things bouncing against the cottage. When I first opened the door there was something — a refrigerator is what it looked like — was going past the house."
That's how Tuesday morning began for Jeremy Porter and his family, who were among countless people caught up in extreme rainfall and serious flooding in the Rochester-Finger Lakes region.
Dozens of people, including the Porters, were trapped by floodwaters on the shore of Seneca Lake, which bore the brunt of Tuesday's storm. Trailers were reported overturned by gushers of water racing down steep slopes toward the lake, and at least one lakeside home was said to have been washed off its foundation.
No deaths or serious injuries were reported.
The Porters huddled away from floodwaters for hours until first responders made it through to lead them to safety.
People in multiple locations, including Rochester's southeastern suburbs, had to be plucked by emergency personnel from cars stalled in flooded roadways or from homes surrounded by surging water.
Thousands of motorists were forced to detour as major highways closed for a time in Schuyler, Monroe and other counties. Sections of some rural roads were undermined by raging water and caved in.
As much as 9 inches of rain in a few hours' time triggered the worst flash flood in the Finger Lakes region at least since the 2014 Penn Yan, Yates County, disaster. It will take days to remove the debris, and weeks or months to repair homes, roads and other infrastructure.
"It’s amazing, the devastation," said Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who traveled to Lodi, Seneca County, on Tuesday morning to survey the damage.
Cuomo issued a state of emergency declaration for Monroe, Ontario, Wayne, Yates, Seneca and Schuyler counties in the Finger Lakes, as well as counties in several other regions of the state that were hit by rain from the same storm system.
The state dispatched 50 New York National Guard members and 10 vehicles to help with cleanup. The emergency declaration is a necessary precursor to a federal aid application.
Local states of emergency also were declared in Monroe, Seneca and Schuyler counties.
The same storm system that caused flooding in the Southern Tier on Monday began to dump rain on the southern Finger Lakes from Monday night into Tuesday morning. The worst-hit spot was southern Seneca Lake, where 5 to 9 inches of rain fell.
The lake's water level rose nearly 10 inches between 3:30 a.m. and 1 p.m. Tuesday.
The storm shifted to bring heavy rain to parts of Monroe, Ontario and Wayne counties later Tuesday morning. A weather observer near Fairport reported 3½ inches.
That rain touched off another round of flooding, with Perinton and Penfield being hard-hit. Several roads were closed for a time by high water.
At least a few fingerling trout were liberated when the Powder Mills fish hatchery flooded.
Irondequoit Creek, always a trouble spot after heavy rains, overtopped its banks at several points. The National Weather Service warned that dangerously high water was expected to last until Tuesday evening in the creek at Ellison Park in Penfield.
The greatest damage appeared to have been in southern Seneca and northern Schuyler counties, where Route 14, a major north-south road, was closed. Power outages were reported, and a major water main reportedly broke in Schuyler County.
It was the worst flooding in memory, Seneca County Manager John Sheppard said late Tuesday afternoon, but "the situation is stabilized and getting better."
No deaths or significant injuries were reported, he said.
Lodi got the worst of it. An as-yet-unknown number of residences were damaged, as were campers and autos. "Some are in the water," Sheppard said.
State highways in the county were open, though some were reduced to a single lane, he said. Some county and town roads were impassable. Sheppard added that those roads should open to limited traffic relatively soon, though it will be weeks and months before they're all rebuilt.
Parts of the Schuyler County village of Montour Falls were under water for a time Tuesday, and Watkins Glen State Park, where people normally walk alongside Glen Creek in a narrow, deep gorge, was evacuated for safety reasons.
Just south of the park, the 90-foot-high cascade known as Aunt Sarah's Falls, which usually features a modest amount of water, raged like Niagara.
People pulled over to watch the spectacle, and WROC-TV (Channel 8)'s John Kucko aired a live video of the torrent that Facebook said was viewed 3.5 million times.
Southern Seneca Lake, which straddles the Seneca-Schuyler county line, is lined with homes and cottages that sit at the base of steep slopes. As the rain poured down early Tuesday, the countless creeks that bisect those slopes filled to brimming, and water began to sheet down the hillsides themselves.
The torrent scoured the hillsides, washing trees, shrubs and man-made materials to the bottom.
Cuomo, after surveying a road leading down to the lake in Lodi, struggled to describe what he'd seen. "It's not just the water. You have about a quarter of a mile of trees and debris and stumps," he said. "We need heavy machinery to remove these trees and stumps."
The removal was of some urgency, he said then, because as many as 50 people were trapped along the lakeshore by high water and debris. Firefighters who'd driven in earlier to help them were also trapped.
Those people were safely evacuated and all fire personnel and equipment were recovered, Sheppard said.
So were Jeremy Porter, his wife and their three young children — but it took hours.
The Porters, who live in Interlaken, Seneca County, were staying in a cottage on the lake in Lodi.
What they saw when they opened the door about 7:30 a.m. Tuesday were rivers of water rushing with great force on either side of the cottage.
They decided they'd better leave.
"We thought we had a few minutes but it came much faster than we thought. After probably 15 to 20 minutes the water was going right through the cottage," Porter told a reporter. "We were outside (and) we sheltered on the other side of the cottage, and tried to find a way to the lake. The lake looked much more stable."
With rushing flood waters all around them and no way out discernible, they found a relatively dry place for the children to sit and hunkered down.
"We just waited. There was nowhere to go. To tell you the truth, we were reciting Scripture verses and praying together, that’s all we were doing," he said.
In late morning, first responders made their way to the cottage and led the Porter family to safety. The kids were ferried through the torrents on a tracked compact loader.