Communication left something to be desired

I personally witnessed the devastation Hurricane Irene wrought upon northern New Jersey while driving through Sussex, Morris, Passaic, and Bergen counties for work and the cleanup is not only massive in scope, but will be long term. That being said ,and understanding the complexities of such an effort, I am still disappointed that little or no communication apparently existed for those living in Lake Mohawk on West Shore, Oakwood, and Heighwood Trails regarding the circumstances related to the power outage and downed trees. I would have thought that at some point some emergency vehicles (fire/police) would have driven through and informed residents of the situation and what to do or at the very least posted local traffic only signs. Instead we were left without power or information and next thing you know the entire West Shore of Lake Mohawk was driving the wrong way down a one-way street (Heighwood) and under broken utility poles and wires while though inert, still posed a threat to residents were they to collapse. This is not meant to be a criticism of our police or fire departments, both of whom I have the highest respect for and many of whom I know personally, but when there is a lack of communication society will inevitably come to their own conclusions, some of which could prove fatal. Heighwood Trail became especially dangerous for residents as drivers unaccustomed to the road, drove far too fast down it the wrong way endangering children accustomed to playing on or near it throughout the day. I am happy to say that those of us living there have done our best to make the best of the situation and looked in on one another, especially the elderly, to ensure that they were okay and that they had what they needed. Still, it would have been nice to hear from someone in some other fashion than the Web, which without power is useless. Brian Maher Sparta