Hurricane Irene, which hit the area as a nasty tropical storm Sunday, packed a devastating one-two punch in Saugerties, flooding low-lying areas along the Esopus and Plattekill creeks and hammering most everyone with sustained gale-force winds.

On Tuesday, more than 1,000 customers of Poughkeepsie-based Central Hudson were without power in the town and village. Some were told they’d have to wait until the end of the week.

But in comparison to nearby communities such as Shandaken, Windham, and towns in the southern portion of Ulster County, Saugerties did relatively well. Much of the initial damage was caused by heavy rains, according to the Ulster County Office of Emergency Management between 7 and 10 inches was dumped on the town and village. However, it wasn’t just the rain that hit here that caused homes and roads to be flooded, rain falling to the west of here was running out of the mountains into the Upper Esopus and adding to local high-water woes.