We just got off the phone with Pittsfield Emergency Manager Peter Borden, who said folks are holding up well in the tiny mountain town that received national media attention over the last few days.The infrastructure damage is a major issue, though, he said.
"Power is a huge deal," Borden said. "The infrastructure is demolished. The road north is gone."
But, he said, people are making do and doing fine. "You want to see a happy place, come up here."
"The biggest challenge right now is with the kids, who want to go to school," he said. "I can get them to the Wheelerville cut (the gap in the road in Mendon near Wheelerville Road), but then getting them distributed beyond there, to Barstow, or the high school, is a problem."
The next thing Borden will be working on is moving northeast into Stockbridge, a town that is also cut off from the outside world.
"There are some folks up on Stony Brook Road, we hear," he said, "who we've checked in with, and they're fine, but they haven't gotten any food or supplies yet. And that's a dead cell area."
In Pittsfield, he said, small gestures can make a big difference.
"I gave a guy a bottle of milk the other day," he said. "And he broke down on my shoulder crying."
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