Work begins on Head of the Harbor emergency road for storm-ravaged residents

More than a month after rainwaters washed out Mill Creek Road in the Village of Head of the Harbor, bulldozers and dump trucks started up Wednesday as work began on an emergency access road for residents of seven stranded homes.

The Town of Smithtown, working with the village, began paving the temporary road across private property to provide an entry point for up to two years on Emmet Drive to Mill Creek Road residents.

The homes have been virtually inaccessible to vehicles since the storm flooded the region and washed out the only access point on the privately owned road, which runs along the bluff overlooking the Mill Pond.

"Mill Creek Road as it stood before the storm was the only access road to get to the seven dwellings on the street," said Head of the Harbor Police Chief Chuck Lohmann said. "Once the road collapsed it created the obvious situation where we would be unable to reach those people."

For the residents, Wednesday finally brought relief and the return of mundane but now-welcome tasks that had previously seemed unimaginable.

"It means we can drive in and out, finally, so there are a lot of happy people," said Thomas Rubio, who lives at the end of the road. "We’re happy we can access our properties and not walk through the woods with packages and groceries. There’s a difficulty of day-to-day things you expect, carrying bags of garbage and food in, taking kids to school every day. It’s a lot more difficult when you don’t have a car."

The village and the Town of Smithtown reached an intermunicipal agreement to build the temporary road on an electric easement through backyards until the main road can be rebuilt.

The town is spending $1,700 to build the emergency road, which officials said they expect will be reimbursed by the village with federal disaster money. Crews began removing two trees, which will be replanted after construction is completed. The temporary road will be paved with an aggregate of rock and asphalt able to withstand snow and ice. It will be removed by the town once Mill Creek Road is replaced.

The village issued an evacuation order last week for the seven homes after Mill Creek Road further deteriorated. At the time, Lohmann said emergency vehicles could not reach residents, some of them elderly or in need of medical care.

Lohmann said the evacuation order will remain in place until the temporary road is fixed.

"Once the road washed out and was compromised, no vehicles could drive on that road, not a police car, an ambulance and certainly not fire apparatus," Lohmann said. "This was a pressing issue and we understand the impact it has on people, but we have to think of public safety and how to reach people. If we can’t reach people, that’s a real problem."

— With Virginia Huie 

By John Asbury

john.asbury@newsday.comJohnAsbury

John Asbury is a breaking news and general assignment reporter. He has been with Newsday since 2014 and previously worked at The Press-Enterprise in Riverside, California.