Piermont Closes All Streets

The Village of Piermont updated its state of emergency late Monday to close all streets in town.

"We've closed all roads in Piermont to traffic," Piermont Mayor Chris Sanders said. "We want people to be staying home. I strongly recommend residents in low-lying areas evacuate. I'm not making it mandatory. People know where they can go while they're still able.

"Right now it's a lot of wind and you've seen the river. It's extremely angry. The tide will slowly march in between now and 11 p.m. tonight. 

"Our low sections of Piermont are flooding," Piermont Fire Chief Kevin Fagan said. "The tide has subsided quite a bit, but they're looking for a big one tonight, four and a half feet aboe normal flood tide. We've got sand bags out and pumps ready, but it's been relatively quiet."

The Piermont Fire Department was called to investigate a report of two people out on a sailboat. When they got there, nobody was aboard.

"I wasn't happy that the fire department was called out like that," Sanders said. "Somebody thought they saw people on it, so we end up putting people in danger. We have to go out and check. That's disappointing, but it's what we do. We try to make sure people are safe."

Fagan said so far one resident is taking advantage of the shelter at the Piermont Fire Department. 

"We're pretty resilient here," Fagan said. "We just take care of our own."

He said no decision has been made about the Halloween parade and haunted house scheduled for Wednesday from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m.

"We did have six nches of water in the haunted house," Fagan said. "We got the props off the floor and wrapped up the sheets. We'll try really hard to have it. I don't want to call it off after all the work we had to do to get it ready."