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Flooding, Outages Force Residents to Restock

MOUNT PLEASANT, N.Y. – Con Edison still reported more than 3,000 customers without power in the Mt. Pleasant area as of Monday evening.

As a result, Aimee Nichols of Berger Hardware in Hawthorne said people are continuing to restock on emergency items.

"Batteries and flashlights were definitely the most popular things and then once those started to go people actually went for stuff like lamps and lamp oil," Nichols said.

With the amount of flooding throughout the Mt. Pleasant area, Nichols said items like sump pumps and shop-vacs were flying off the shelves to remove water from basements. However, most shoppers were back Monday to make additional purchases for these items.

"A lot of people were excited about buying sump pumps to clear out their basements and be prepared but then they started worry about what if the power goes out," she said,

Nichols said this lead to an increase the number of generators that were purchased in order to allow people to pump water out of their basements during a power outage.

Nichols has been a co-owner of Berger Hardware with her brother, Chris Rubeo, and father Mark Rubeo, since 2004 and said there was more supply shopping by customers for this storm than any other. .

"We've seen our fair share of storms over the years and winter storms are pretty bad but this one topped them in terms of how panicked people where," Nichols said.

The Mt. Pleasant Police Department said Monday that the town's Highway Department has begun clearing out fallen trees and branches.

How did you handle the cleanup from Tropical Storm Irene? Comment below or on Facebook.

 

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