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It’s fair to say that the devastation of Irene in the Mohawk and Schoharie valleys was pretty apparent from the view of a Blackhawk helicopter.

And while New York City was largely spared the full brunt of the storm, large swaths of upstate were hit especially hard.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo took two helicopter tours of the devastation in the Mohawk Valley. The second included a contingent of the LCA, along with FEMA Regional Director Lynn Cantor.

We dipped over Prattsville, in Greene County, whose remaining downtown appeared to be covered in a large brown puddle. Roads, bridges, homes and farms were all flooded or completely erased by the water.

The helicopters settled down at a flooded soccer field outside of Fulton where Cuomo met briefly with local officials and New York guardsmen.

“We want to make sure we’re doing everything we can,” Cuomo said.

The differences between the images of city commuters returning to work (albeit slowly) and upstate residents trying to pick up the pieces of their town is stark.

“We were very lucky in New York City. But in the Catskills, in the Hudson Valley, this is a different story, and we’re paying a terrible price,” Cuomo said while walking off a bridge that had a gaping hole in it.

The epic flooding was attributed to the rise in the water level of the Schoharie Creek, which seeped into the Mohawk River. The heavy rainfall from the summer had already led to high water levels.

“It was a record rainfall on saturated land that then created a record flood, and the record flood is going to wreak havoc. I think a lot of preparation was done here also, but it’s a record flood and the flood is going to do damage.”

It remains unclear just how much the damage will cost, though State Operations Director Howard Glaser later estimated that it would be significant. This is one of the poorest regions of the state and the small communities and counties that were affected by this won’t be able to pay for the damage on their own.

And for a cash-strapped state like New York, attention will be focused on FEMA and whether it will qualify these towns for any aid.

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