Take a look—More than 60 photos of the results of Hurricane Irene can be found at photo.ourherald.com/flood2011.

Brookfield’s Pond Village was the site of frenzied activity Sunday night as members of the road crew and volunteers from the community struggled to save the homes of their friends and neighbors.

Richard Fink, who owns Ariel’s restaurant on Brookfield Pond (also known as Sunset Lake), gave this account.

“We had the same amount of rain as everyone else did Sunday. Beth Urie recorded 10.5 inches at the top of Ralph Road. Ted Elzey had recorded 6.5 in the village.

“The dam couldn’t hold such an enormous amount of water, so the water sought other avenues of egress. It went over the top and around both sides.” This included the park where Jim Sardonis’ hippopotamus statue stands, as well as on the other side of the road, where the Fork Shop stands.

“I was there with the crew as everyone tried to save the southeastern part of the village,” Fink relates. “The water was beginning to pour down route 65. It was frantic—lots of equipment right where it was all happening. Everyone was furiously digging trenches, worried that the dam might blow, head for the church and destroy every house in its path.”

Leading the crew was Brookfield road supervisor Ray Peck. “At one point, Ray was on a backhoe in the middle of the torrent and the water was pushing at the tires on both sides,” Fink recalls.

Wisely, Peck had anchored his rig with metal supports, preventing the water from pushing him downstream.

Jane Doerfer, owner of the property formerly known as the Fork Shop Restaurant, is extremely grateful for the crew’s work, and attributes their efforts to saving her home. She ended up with just a couple of inches of mud in the storage room.

“It was a valiant effort,” Fink said.