It was only 20 minutes but it was, by far, the longest 20 minutes of my life.
I pulled to the side of Route 30, right across from Marge Becker's house near Vroman's Nose to take a picture of the road damage. I noticed that my cell phone, which was a godsend in the last 36 hours, was blinking and that I had a message.
I wasn't prepared for what I heard in the voice mail. My daughter Maria, in a voice filled with terror, screamed, "The dam has broke! Get out to higher ground!"
I immediately stepped on the gas and sped home to Wells Avenue in Middleburgh. I ran around the house but found no one. I raced down to the village office on Main Street where my son Matthew, who is on the village board, was supposed to be manning the office.
The signs on the door read, "Free coffee," and "We are open." The door was unlocked. I raced inside and screamed for my son but got no answer. I ran to the back, to the basement but still no answer.
Back outside I jumped in my van, which did yeoman's work the last two days, and raced (there's that word again) up Main Street to Cotton Hill Road. Deputy Jeff McCoy, yelled, "There was no break!" I immediately grabbed my cell phone and tried to call Matthew; failing, I tried my son Michael. No dice.
I turned left onto Cotton Hill Road and drove past the town garage where many people spent the prior evening. No panic there. I knew where I had to go. To the old town dump where we had spent the prior night.
Two cars were already there but not Matt's silver Aveo. Marc Newsome and his wife said they had not seen my kids but they had heard the news about the break was false and left.
Back up the hill I went hoping to find my kids.
A few hundred feet up, John Cancio came driving down in his pickup. He said he had seen Matt's car and the kids a few miles up on Cotton Hill.
Back up Cotton Hill. Past three downed trees and the crews working to clear them.
Finally, I spotted Matt's little car on the left side of the road near John Beretz' home.
I beeped and pulled up to the front of Matt's car. The kids jumped out and immediately ran to me and we shared a tear-filled group hug like never before. We were so glad we were all safe sound.

Like everyone else, we began preparing for Hurricane Irene days before. We filled up gallons of water jugs. I went to our cabin in Roseboom and grabbed battery-operated lights, candles and other supplies. I looked for D-sized batteries at Wal-Mart but they were long gone.
We cleared the yard and put everything in the garage. I put the sump pumps in place and took everything off the basement floor. In the flood of January 1996, we got three feet but I figured as long as we had power, we'd be fine.
I went to bed early Saturday night and woke up at about 8:30, just in time to see that we had lost power.
The rain was bad and my son Mike said it really poured at about 5:30 and he couldn't see across the street.
I checked the basement, and seeing no water, decided to go to church, figuring it might be a good day to say some prayers.
Our Lady of the Valley was lit by candles and only 10 people were at Mass but it filled me with a sense that everything would be OK, especially when the power came back on while Father Tom was speaking.
Mike and I took a walk around the village when I got home and both had a sense that the storm was not as bad as we had feared.
I took pictures of people getting their businesses ready for high water on Main Street but nothing seemed ominous.
It rained hard, and until Jim Poole called at about 1pm Sunday and said Channel 10 said there might be a problem with the dam, it seemed that the "Storm of the Century" might spare the Schoharie Valley.
I told Maria, who had a very tough year at home, to pack a bag, just in case we needed to get out.
Just a minute after the words left my lips, we heard the dam siren.
We looked at each other and knowing what we had to do, grabbed what we could. and ran outside and got in my van. Knowing that Wells Avenue and Main were already flooded by the small creek by the high school, we drove up Cliff Street and down Straub Lane. The creek by Main Street was already overflowing and there were large limbs and wood on the span. Mike jumped out and, running through the water, tossed the the wood out of the way. We turned left up Main and went up Cotton Hill. People were gathering at the town garage but we wanted to get up as far as we could. We got about a mile past the old dump before we encountered a large tree across the road. Power lines were drooping across the road.
We turned around and went to the town garage. People pouring in but the kids wanted to get higher and we went up to the old dump. We sat and sat and seeing town trucks and a chipper going up Cotton Hill, decided it was time to go higher. We ventured up Cotton Hill, passing by the downed trees and a flooded roadway. We reached the end of Cotton Hill by Route 443 and turned right to get to Berne.
A mile down, Route 443 was flooded. Back to Cotton Hill and the village. We cut across the cemetery and up Huntersland Road. Huntersland Creek was flooded. Back up to our spot by the old dump.
It was still light and the rain had almost stopped. We decided to get out. Looking down Cotton Hill, we saw the Valley for the first time. What looked like sky turned out to be water. The Valley was flooded except for a few small islands. We drove down to the cemetery and debated about two of us going home to check out the damage. Maria was absolutely against it, but we convinced her it would be safe.
Matt and I started down Main Street and got as far as Binder's garage where we encountered a raging river.
The road was littered with debris, limbs, mud, stones. We cleared as much as we could, which allowed some cars and trucks to get down Main Street. Water from driveways seemed like the rapids but we held hands and made it across. We finally reached Wells and Main and noticed the mound of debris at the start of Clauverwie.
After what seemed like an eternity, we reached our home on Wells. The basement had about four feet of water. I stripped down to my swimming trunks and sneakers and plunged in and plugged in the pumps.
The house smelled of fuel oil, but I went back upstairs, grabbed some clothes, and other supplies and with backpacks strapped to our back we headed back to Cotton Hill.
Reaching the van. I told the kids that instead of a dinner of cold cheese sandwiches we should go to the Middleburgh Diner.
Thankfully, the diner was still open and very busy. Our meals were not fancy but it seemed like dinner at the Waldorf and not just a small-town diner.
Everyone at the diner shared stories and some stayed the night there.
After dinner we headed back up to the old dump to spend the night.
The van was tight but dry and safe.
I slept the most (I was told I snored loudly) and we all woke up before light.
At first light we drove down to the cemetery.
Leaving Maria and Mike in the safety of the cemetery, Matt and I headed down to the village.
The water had receded in spots but was still pouring across the street. We cleared stones as we went down. We were amazed at the damage by the Middleburgh district offices. A tranquil creek had turned into a raging river depositing mud, stones and limbs by the garage and across the street.
We went down Main Street at about 8am and it reminded us of pictures of lower Manhattan after 9/11. Few people were around; not a good sign.
Every business on the west side of Main was devastated.
The inside of the Chinese restaurant was filled with mud and tossed furniture. The front window of NAPA was blown out by the force of the water. The propane tanks by Hubie's were jostled like toys in a tub spewing gas. One of the windows of the Conglomerate was blown out as were both door windows of the Chamber of Commerce. Across the street, we could see that front of Four Star Realty had been pushed in by the force of the water.
Reaching home, we noticed that the water was down about a foot and decided to grab our bikes and head back to the cemetery.
Matt biked back down to the village office and me, Maria and Mike ate at the diner again to fuel up for the day. I even had a cup of coffee, about the fifth I've had in 49 years. We decided to leave the van in the cemetery and walk home.
As we reached the corner of Cotton Hill and Main, I saw Ed Guntert turning his car around. I don't normally ask for a ride but figured now was the time. Mr. Guntert drove us right to our door.
Seeing everything was safe, Maria stayed home with a cell phone and Mike and I toured the village.
River Street was a mess. A car was tossed on the sidewalk, one of the ornamental lights was snapped off at the base, many of the logs of the stone wall were gone, the stones displaced, many pushed across the street from the force of the water.
The front doors of the hall at the Reformed Church were torn open and a Subaru at the corner of Middlefort and River was stopped by a hydrant and had a branch had gone through its windshield and debris covered its roof.
We set out to Cancio Auto Sales to check out a car Mike bought for college on Friday. We found the car, a 1995 Olds, muddy from top to bottom with about an inch of muck on its front seats. After 223,000 miles, the Olds would travel no more. The inside of Cancio's had a water mark about six feet up the wall.
We headed home and I had a nourishing lunch of a cheese sandwich.
I took my bike, and a deputy at the corner of Cotton Hill and Main said I could drive back down.
Just as I reached the van and pushed my bike in, Matt called and said the governor was landing near Max Shaul Park.
I grabbed my camera at home and, knowing the deputies, was able to get down Route 30.
The governor arrived in a large, blue state helicopter and toured the damage on the Partridge Nest bridge with Assemblyman Pete Lopez, Supervisor Dennis Richards, Sheriff Tony Desmond, and county board Chairman Harold Vroman and FEMA head Lynn Canton.
On the way back, Maria left me her message.

After everything calmed down, we spent three hours in the upper cemetery. I even fell asleep for a while, a needed rest. At about 5pm, we headed home.
Matt called and asked about dinner and I decided that since I had so much chicken parmagiana left over from Saturday night, I cooked a pound of spaghetti, warmed up the tomato sauce and headed down to the village office.
Entering the office I found three people in addition to Matt. Bobby, a retired postal worker from my home county of Queens, and two women, Debbie and her daughter Kelly.
I put spaghetti on each plate and topped it with chicken parmagiana.
We held hands, said grace, and dug in.
We finished the meal with some of Maria's raspberry cupcakes (the ones the cats did not eat).
Main Street was eerily dusty but two days of bursts of anxiety, waves of relief and fantastic camaraderie among the great people of Middleburgh ended with volunteers helping clean businesses on Main Street.
Exhausted, I went to sleep, knowing tomorrow would be a brighter day.