When a devastating storm brought severe flooding on Sunday, Charlene Yehl was driving home with her daughter. But rising waters forced her out of her car, and her husband and neighbors had to come help get her and her daughter to higher ground.
"The things that are happening are just surreal," she said. "I think looking back on it, that was just something that really. And then to get home and see the what happened. But it was it's really hard. It's been hard.”
Yehl is 9 months pregnant and due to give birth to her third child any day. That made it even more heartbreaking when the family got home to find the house flooded with 5 to 6 feet of water.
But help has been here for her and her family. They’re living at the nearby Holiday Inn, but she can’t walk a few steps without someone stopping to ask how they’re doing. It’s an entire community that has looked out for each other since the flood hit.
Highland Falls Mayor Joe D’Onofrio said with more rain in the forecast, the recovery effort is focused on a few things.
“Sewer plant, the water towers, the drinking water, that it's safe, which again, it appears that it is," he said. "We have a storm, another storm coming. Not like the one we experienced, but depending on the amount of rain, a lot of the debris that folks are putting on the sidewalk is going to start to move.”
Around the area, Amtrak and Metro-North travel has resumed on the lines that were flooded. Parts of routes 6 and 9W have reopened, but the Bear Mountain Bridge circle remains closed.
Yehl, her growing family and the community, will get through this, though. She has no doubt about that.
“I don't think that a lot of people really understand what a small town can do," she said. "There's a lot of strength here, a lot of people that are putting their own hardships aside to volunteer and for businesses donating, for people giving time. Everybody that has moved a mountain literally to get here. It's been incredible.”
Yehl also serves as the president of the Town of Highlands Chamber of Commerce. She says that she’s usually one of the ones out on the front-line volunteering, so she’s grateful that her neighbors have her back, even setting up a Gofundme for her.
She said those funds will likely go toward temporary housing.