When Schoharie County Undersheriff Ron Stevens gave the go-ahead to sound the emergency sirens last August 28, his next thought was:
"What did I do?"
Nine months later, he knows he made the right call.
And the sirens he, Sheriff Tony Desmond, and others are convinced saved countless lives, are back up and running.
Last Wednesday, the Schoharie County Emergency Management Office ran its first post-Hurricane Irene audible drill.
It went off without a hitch, said Undersheriff Stevens, who worked through the fall and winter to get the warning system of 20 sirens back in place.
A half-dozen sirens were damaged in the August flooding; one on Priddle Road in Esperance was taken down by what Undersheriff Stevens can only guess was a house.
That siren has been moved to higher ground. It now also has a bigger horn so residents of Burtonsville, over the county line, can hear it.
A few other sirens have also been "tweaked."
"There are many, many lessons to be learned from this," Undersheriff Stevens said. "If we don't take advantage of that, we're only hurting ourselves."
Replacing the sirens came with a $220,000 price tag and while they were originally intended to sound only in the event of an actual dam failure, Sheriff Desmond said he stands behind the decision to sound them.
"There's no question that lives were saved," he said. "Even with the sirens, we had people stranded in their homes, on their roofs...We all expected a huge loss of life. I think we're going to be using the sirens differently now."
The sirens are tested every Wednesday inside the county's Communications Office in the jail; audible tests are run just the first Wednesday of the month and while the county has been running the silent tests, last Wednesday was the first audible one.
"It's a small place, but a lot goes on here," said Sheriff Desmond.
"All it takes is one call."
Testing the sirens is a simple process, explained Supervisor Amy Wayman, and a printed readout confirms that everything is working as it should.
Three sirens in the southern end of the county-at Nickerson's, Mine Kill, and Max V. Shaul-where people might be camping and out of touch with what's going on-also have verbal alerts that say "This is just a test."
Immediately after the flood, the 911 dispatchers and staff moved to a backup site at the Cobleskill Police Department-but not before making sure that the system was up and running there.
"We had people coming in on their days off, their vacations," said Ms. Wayman. "They just wanted to be there to help. They said, 'This is our job. This is what we do.' "
It was an especially tough job during the flood, agreed dispatchers Jeannette Strong and Amber Letko, with calls coming in from people they knew and couldn't always help.
"Sometimes, we'd just have to take five," said Ms. Strong, especially after calls from families with young children. "Sometimes it was hard to keep it together..."
Last Wednesday's test prompted only one phone call, "just to make sure it was a test," said Ms. Wayman. "We understand. Even now, people are still a little nervous."
The next audible siren test will be June 13.