Cuomo: State sees $1B in damage from Irene

 Tropical Storm Irene caused close to $1 billion worth of damage across New York, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said Wednesday, giving the first estimate of recovery costs.

Cuomo gave the projections as he joined with U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano and Craig Fugate, head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, to tour Prattsville, a tiny community of about 700 residents in the northern Catskills where the Schoharie Creek flooded, toppling houses, displacing mobile homes and devastating businesses.

Cuomo has said that, in his estimation, Prattsville was probably the hardest-hit community in New York.

Across the state, 600 homes were destroyed, six towns inundated, 150 major highways damaged and 22 state bridges closed, while agriculture losses exceeded $45 million, Cuomo said.

In the Catskills and mid-Hudson areas alone, emergency crews rescued 124 people, many of whom were trapped in buildings or motor vehicles amid flash flooding, Cuomo administration officials said.

While New York City and Long Island didn't suffer as much damage as initially feared, the governor said, communities in the Catskills and Adirondacks "paid a terrible price for this storm and are going to need our time and attention and our resources to restore."

President Barack Obama declared eight upstate counties disaster areas, making them eligible for federal aid. FEMA asked people to register to get the process started.

However, Fugate said that federal aid will only be part of the picture.

"FEMA grants are to help you get started, they're not going to make you whole," Fugate said. Grants, which are needs based, top out at $30,000, he said.

Cuomo, who arrived by helicopter, said the state would help too, beginning with opening two command centers in the area for state, federal and local agencies.

Humvees and trucks kicked up dust on the main street through Prattsville, covered with a layer of dried mud in many spots, as National Guard troops, residents and various agency workers walked through town.

The flood washed away about half of the mobile homes in a trailer park on the edge of town, said Robert Hanley, 28, a firefighter whose trailer home survived and now overlooks a field of debris. Hanley said about two dozen of the more than 44 trailers there previously are now gone.

With Yancey Roy