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Friends, family, and total strangers are grabbing shovels, mops and buckets to help shopkeepers clear debris left by flooding and salvage whatever they can in mountain villages ravaged by Irene’s deluge in upstate New York.

In the Catskill Mountain ski town of Windham, 26-year-old Antonia Schreiber said Tuesday that she has no flood insurance to rebuild her day spa in a 200-year-old Victorian cottage. She’s grateful to dozens of volunteers who helped clear foot-deep muck and tear out sodden walls in the aftermath of flooding from Sunday’s torrential rain.

Natasha Shuster, whose general store was flooded, says the Federal Emergency Management Agency told her there’s no aid for small businesses.

Irene destroyed 500 to 600 homes and thousands of acres of farmland and left six people dead upstate.

Topics Flood New York