New Rochelle Lifts State of Emergency, Cleanup Continues

New Rochelle lifted its state of emergency Monday, while residents continued their cleanup efforts from the damage caused by Hurricane, then Tropical Storm Irene.

City Manager Charles Strome III said the emergency decree was lifted at 9 a.m. Monday.

"We kind of lucked out," he said. "There was no real damage to any municipal facilities and normal flooding.

Strome said the city was getting back to business a lot quicker than he had anticipated.

"At the end of the day we are a lot better than some of the other communities," he said.

Emergency crews were on call and other employees were on duty for the duration of the storm, Strome said.

"For something like this you can't think about the money," he said. "You do what you have to do."

About 1,000 Con Ed customers in the Queen City were still without power, with the Con Ed power outage map saying restoration could be delayed until Thursday.

, so for some scattered outages, such as in New Rochelle, it could be a while.

Dry ice for the Sound Shore area was available Monday at the Village of Mamaroneck train station.

In New Rochelle, garbage is being picked up per the regular schedule. Debris from the storm will be collected on designated days. For more information about bundling guidelines, see the city Web site.

The leaf blower ban has been lifted until Monday, city officials said.

Piles of branches, which continue to grow, line most New Rochelle streets. One house on Meadow Lane lost a front-yard tree.

Westchester County park crews were hard at work Monday cleaning up Glen Island Park.

Deputy Parks Commissioner Peter Tartaglia said they anticipated reopening the park Tuesday.

"The crew is cleaning up as best they can," he said. "There's a lot of debris, whether it was sand from the shore or tree limbs, and there's actually no power at the park."

found itself playing host to 20 residents of nursing homes in Coney Island and Far Rockaway.

President and CEO Rita Mabli said they heard about one of the nursing homes Thursday.

"On Friday we started receiving fax cover sheets telling us who was coming and what the diagnoses were" for the patients, she said.

Mabli said the staff at United Hebrew were surprised to see little buses filled with displaced nursing home residents pulling up to the facility Friday.

"We didn't expect them," she said, "but we weren't going to send anyone back."

The surprise patients came with a nurse from their home who had all the medical records.

"It made it a little bit labor intensive," Mabli said, "but everyone pulled together."

United Hebrew staff found additional beds, tables and supplies and were able to accommodate everyone.

The new patients had been on the buses for a couple of hours, so the first task was to give them lunch.

"I guess for some a simple sandwich never tasted so good," Mabli said.

She said United Hebrew had already prepared for the approaching storm and had a three-day supply of food for emergencies on top of what they normally had.

Mabli said they found out that one gentleman, a former New York City policeman, had a birthday Saturday, so staff went out and got him a cake.

"A bunch of people went above and beyond," she said. "It was a good event, in terms of turning a bad into a positive."