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Hurricane Sandy Slams Trailer Homes, Boats Around Verplanck

VERPLANCK, N.Y. – Severe flooding from Hurricane Sandy’s storm surge battered Verplanck’s Riveredge trailer park and Hudson Valley Marine boatyard, tossing 30-foot boats onto the roadway like toys, scattering debris across Veteran’s Park and leaving Steamboat Dock Park partially under water.

Hudson Valley Marine boats in Verplanck after Hurricane Sandy.

Hudson Valley Marine boats in Verplanck after Hurricane Sandy.

Photo Credit: Jessica Glenza

Hurricane Sandy washed boats from Hudson Valley Marine boatyard into into Kings Ferry Road, where they smashed up against the guardrail that keeps cars from driving into Lake Meahagh.

Photo Credit: Jessica Glenza
Debris piled by Riveredge Trailer Park in Verplanck.

Debris piled by Riveredge Trailer Park in Verplanck.

Photo Credit: Jessica Glenza
Hudson Valley Marine boat on Lings Ferry Road in Verplanck.

Hudson Valley Marine boat on Lings Ferry Road in Verplanck.

Photo Credit: Jessica Glenza

Residents of the trailer park, on Riverview Avenue wept as they returned home Tuesday morning to a scene of destruction.

The water had risen four feet overnight, at one point leaving about a foot of water in the approximately three dozen trailers at the Riveredge park. Debris was scattered across the quarter-mile-wide park. Several utility poles had come to rest on the doorsteps of some of the trailers. More than a dozen cars had been picked up and sloshed around during the night.

Three trailers at the northern end of the park were smushed up against the fence with their windows ripped out. 

“It’s a little too much,” said Lillian Zhingri, 13, a resident of the park, as she shoveled debris into a trash can alongside her family.

Most of the residents of Riveredge Park had evacuated, either Monday afternoon or later, when flood waters got too high. Everyone got out safely.

The scene was similar at the nearby former Peekskill Seaplane Base, where a group of five illegally parked trailers was completely demolished. One landed on a 4-foot high juniper tree. Another was gutted, leaving just an aluminum skeleton.

“We had a nice porch here, but I don’t know where it went,” said John Moynihan, a Riveredge resident since 2001. His trailer had about a foot of mud and water in it. “I don’t know if the smell is every going to come out,” he said.

Residents said that when the storm surge rose at about 10 p.m., the Hudson River joined with Lake Meahagh, turning Kings Ferry Road into a churning, 4-foot deep canal that didn’t recede until 5 a.m.

Boats from Hudson Valley Marine were then washed from the boatyard on the river side of the street into Kings Ferry Road, where they banged against the guardrail that keeps cars from driving into the lake. Boats that weren’t in the street were smashed up against a chain link fence after a surge of Hudson River Water lifted them from their winter jack stands.

Boat owners and gawkers found the vessels in the street Tuesday morning. No one from Hudson Valley Marine was available to comment on extent or cost of damage.

“Had the water gotten a drop higher,” said Verplanck resident Leah Esposito, “those boats would have gone into the lake.”

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