Hurricane Irene

From Berne, NY - a Helderberg Hilltown
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Hurricane Irene August 2011, The Osterhout's home on the east shore, courtesy of Lee Jones

In August of 2011 hurricane Irene was forecast to travel up the east coast and come up the Hudson Valley. In anticipation of that the lake was lowered several inches to accommodate the expected rainfall. Over 13 inches of rain fell and combined with the failure of a beaver dam on the stream that enters the north end of the lake which added thousands of gallons of additional muddy water, the lake rose very rapidly to an unprecedented level never seen before. This caused the flooding of many lake front homes and property. At one point the water was going out 2ft higher than the top of the dam. The water level receded very rapidly and had gone down at least 2-3 ft by morning. After an engineering evaluation it was determined that extensive repairs would have to be made to the present dam.