| Watershed Post

Learn how to use Google ads (on any budget) this Monday

We're continuing our WP class series this Monday, November 19, with a 90-minute workshop on how to use Google's powerful advertising program to promote your business on any budget. The class will begin at 5:30pm on Monday at the Delhi E-Center and run until 7 or 7:30pm. Laptops will be provided, or you can bring your own. You can register for the class by clicking the "Buy Now" button below, or by getting in touch with me at 845-481-0155 or at [email protected].

Check out the full course description below:

Introduction to online advertising: How to set up a Google Ad

Google AdWords: it’s a $37.9 billion-per-year business. That’s because it works. Google Ads lets you target ads to each keyword someone searches, so if you want to target people searching for tomato sandwiches in Delhi, you can. But most people are mystified by how Google Ads works. Here’s the beginner’s guide to setting up an ad and making sure you don’t pay too much for it.

At the end of the session, you will be able to:

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Delaware County

Delhi

Sullivan and Ulster Counties declared eligible for federal public aid

Above: A Regional Food Bank of Northeastern New York truck makes a local delivery in Kiamesha Lake soon after Sandy's arrival in the region, October 31, 2012. Photo by John of Catskills Photography; shared in the Watershed Post Flickr group pool.

Good news for local governments: Sullivan and Ulster County, along with their town and village governments and some nonprofits, can apply for federal aid for Sandy-related spending.

Earlier this week, both counties got a disaster declaration from the Federal Emergency Managmement Agency that means their residents are eligible to apply for individual aid for Sandy-related losses. On Tuesday, both counties announced that they have been declared eligible for public aid to local governments as well.

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A church's struggle for interfaith inclusion goes viral

Above: The Holy Innocents Church in Halcottsville. Photo courtesy of Bishop Francisco Betancourt.

A public outcry has erupted in a tight-knit Catskills community over a local interfaith council's reluctance to allow an independent Catholic church to join as a member. The dispute has prompted the council's pro bono lawyer to resign in protest, and stirred up local tensions about same-sex marriage and religion.

Bishop Francisco Betancourt, a founding pastor of the independent Catholic Holy Innocents church in Halcottsville, said that his church has been trying to join the Margaretville Interfaith Council for 12 years, ever since the church was established. Throughout that time, Betancourt said, his efforts have been met with a resounding silence -- a response that was never quite clear enough to be 'no,' but never a welcoming 'yes.'

The reason his church has not been welcomed, Betancourt says, is Holy Innocents' willingness to perform same-sex marriage, an issue that Interfaith Council leaders acknowledge is deeply controversial among their members.

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Margaretville Interfaith Council

Ulster County fire departments help with Sandy relief on Long Island

Above: Esopus Fire Department firefighters taking a break from volunteering for Sandy relief at the beach on Long Island last week. Photo by Randi Port, via the Esopus Fire Department Facebook page.

We asked our readers for photos of Catskills emergency responders working downstate on Hurricane Sandy recovery, and we received some great ones from Zack Spalding, the president of the Esopus Fire Department.

Spalding writes that Esopus firefighters were stationed in Long Island last week with several Ulster County fire departments: Highland, New Paltz, Modena, and Ulster Hose. While on duty doing Sandy relief, Spalding says, Esopus firefighters doused a house fire caused by propane tanks bursting into flame:

The most notable call they have responded while being deployed were 3 100lb propane tanks that exploded and caused a fire to spread to the nearby house.

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Esopus Fire Department

Sullivan and Ulster: FEMA aid available; power outages still linger

Sullivan and Ulster counties are on a list of New York State counties declared eligible for individual aid from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, along with the lower Hudson Valley and New York City metropolitan area.

Both counties have also asked FEMA for a disaster designation that would make public aid available to the county and municipalities -- a request that has support from prominent local politicians, including U.S. Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand. Neither county is currently on the list of Public Aid counties, but the agency is considering their requests. The Freeman reports that Ulster County Emergency Management director Art Snyder expects FEMA public aid to come through:

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Local first responders head downstate to pitch in on Sandy recovery

Photo: An upstate DEP crew works to pump out Manhattan's Battery Underpass, which was submerged under 12 feet of Sandy floodwaters at the height of the storm surge. Photo dated Nov. 1, courtesy of NYC DEP.

Since Sandy made landfall, local firefighters, police, New York City Department of Environmental Protection staff from the upstate watershed area, and other professionals from around the Catskills region have been heading south to help New York City and Long Island recover from Hurricane Sandy. For local first responders who were overwhelmed by the local disaster Irene left behind last year, it's something of a role reversal.

According to an article in the Delaware County Times on October 30, a crew of first responders from Delaware County went to Nassau County on Long Island. Responding fire departments included Stamford, Sidney, and Delhi, with Sidney and Stamford each taking two fire engines and two utility trucks.

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Stayin' Alive: CO Habitating

Editor's note: This column ran in the Watershed Post on July 8, 2011. It's still good advice, and we're resurrecting it, in light of a spate of carbon monoxide poisonings and deaths around the region. Earlier this week, two Shokan residents were found dead after an apparent generator accident, and just this morning, five Poughkeepsie residents were found suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning in their home after a heater malfunction. Two are in critical condition.

Don't run generators indoors. Keep your home heating system in good order. And make sure you have a working CO alarm. But don't take it from us: Take it from the guy who responds to your frantic 911 calls. --Ed.

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How the Half Moon weathered Sandy

Above: A close-up shot of the lion figurehead at the bow of the Half Moon, a replica of the ship Henry Hudson sailed up the river that bears his name in 1609. Photo by Katy Silberger; published under Creative Commons license.

In the Times Union today: A tale of two ships, and how their captains' decisions during Hurricane Sandy led to very different fates.

While Robin Waldridge, captain of the 18th-century replica of the H.M.S. Bounty, felt his vessel would have better odds making it through the storm in the open ocean, Half Moon captain William "Chip" Reynolds opted for the protection of an inland dock on the Connecticut River. The storm would prove Reynolds right: The Bounty was lost, along with Waldridge and crew member Claudine Christian, while the Half Moon pulled through.

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Sandy takes toll on local home

Photo by John from Catskills Photography. Shared in the Watershed Post's Flickr group pool.

Uncounted in any official statistics on Sandy's destruction: This tiny bird's nest, found on November 1 by a Monticello resident checking his yard for storm damage. Luckily, like many houses in the Catskills, this one was a seasonal home, and its former occupants were likely long gone by the time Sandy rolled in.

Another New York bird lost his nest last week too: Big Bird. A 2001 Sesame Street special about a hurricane striking Big Bird's neighborhood has been revived and re-edited to help kids cope with post-Sandy trauma, and will air on PBS tomorrow.

Below: A slideshow of other Sandy photos taken in Sullivan County by Catskills Photography.

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The giver's guide to responsible Hurricane Sandy relief: Give money, not stuff

Above: A pile of surplus donated clothing abandoned in a parking lot in Staten Island one week after Hurricane Sandy. Source: NY1's November 5 report, "Staten Island Donation Centers Taking In More Than They Can Give Out."

In the wake of a disaster like Hurricane Sandy, people want to give. But the giving impulse can cause just as much trouble as the disaster itself.

Here in the Catskills, we learned that firsthand in the aftermath of Hurricane Irene last year.

"We ended up with tractor-trailer loads of clothes," said Charles B. Gockel, the executive director of Huntersfield Christian Training Center, which became ground zero for relief and recovery operations for the hard-hit town of Prattsville after Irene.

"People give things that might have been in their closet for four years, or that is from 1948," he said.

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