ALSTEAD, N.H. (AP) – They were never interested in being heroes. Alstead Police Chief Christopher J. Lyons, town Road Agent David L. Crosby, and Fire Chief Kim J. Kercewich spent the weekend of Oct. 8 trying to save their town from the massive floods that overtook it and they’ve hardly rested since, they say.

But they don’t want applause or accolades. They just want to see their community restored.

“I don’t want to focus on myself,” Lyons said, dark and heavy circles under his eyes, a glassy veneer over them. “I want the people in this town to know that we gave everything we could give. But I don’t want this to be about me.

“I just want to see us get back to normal,” he said.

Without the efforts of Lyons, Crosby and Kercewich, among many others, members of the Alstead community they serve believe there might be little to go back to at all.

“This town owes those gentlemen a huge debt of gratitude,” said Selectman Joel C. McCarty. “If not for Chris and David and Kim, a lot more people would’ve died. It’ll be a long time before everyone here knows just how much we have to thank them for.”

Starting at midnight Sunday, Oct. 9, the police chief was scheduled to be off for nine days resting, riding horses and spending time with his 22-month-old son Quentin.

Instead, Lyons, along with Alstead resident John R. Anderson, spent the night of Oct. 8 into the early morning hours of Oct. 9 going door to door to alert residents: The rain pounding the town meant flooding could be on the way.

“I knew the potential of this thing was devastating,” said Lyons, who estimates that he and Anderson visited 25 to 30 houses that night. “Based on what my road agent told me, and how fast the water was backing up, the combination of those things told me that this was not good.”

And it ended up being far worse than Lyons ever thought.

The Lake Warren dam overflowed, and a culvert at Cooper Hill Road failed to divert the water, allowing a massive wall of water to flood through Alstead Village, destroying much in its way.

By the time the waters had receded, 36 homes were destroyed, with an additional 24 suffering major damage, according to the state department of emergency services, and at least four Alstead residents were dead or missing.

“You never think you’d see anything like this here,” Anderson said of the devastation the floods wrought. “You see things like this on TV, but it’s completely different when you see it in person.”

The rain fell hard all day that Saturday as much as 6 inches, according to some reports. As the rains fell, roads began to accumulate water.

Crosby, the road agent, first went out about 3 p.m., he said, to check the roads and several key problem areas: the Lake Warren dam, the Vilas pool, and several culverts around the town.

“We didn’t realize then how big a thing this was,” Crosby said. “I was just checking the spots we always check.”

One of those spots, along Route 123 near the town highway barn, was beginning to flood.

“The culvert was all plugged up,” Crosby said. “Water started coming down the road. That’s when I knew something was definitely wrong.”

After consulting with Lyons and Kercewich, Crosby decided it was time to evacuate all residents living near the culvert above the adjacent town barn. It was not much past 9 p.m.

From that point, Crosby started making calls to residents, while Lyons and Anderson began visiting households, warning inhabitants of the waters potential dangers.

Evacuated residents were directed to the town hall, Kercewich said.

“It had been bad out there,” he said. “But it was getting worse.”

After deciding to evacuate the region near the Route 123 culvert, Crosby, Lyons and Kercewich decided to set up a command center at the police station in Alstead Village.

Lyons called in police Lt. Robert L. Bromley and secretary Michelle M. Koson to man the center.

Koson and Kercewich would narrowly escape later that morning when flood water began to surround the station.

While Bromley and Koson made calls and continued to help in the evacuation process, Lyons, Crosby and Kercewich then turned their attention to other areas, including Cooper Hill Road and the Lake Warren dam.

Rain water continued to fill the lake, and by 11 p.m., it became clear that both the dam and the culvert at Cooper Hill Road would pose problems, Crosby said. So he directed other fire personnel to attend to the Cooper Hill culvert, while he continued to check on other roads and culverts throughout the town.

Water continued to surround the Cooper Hill culvert, and by 1 a.m. it looked as though the culvert couldn’t take much more, Crosby said. He, Lyons and Kercewich then decided to evacuate the rest of the homes below the culvert.

They opened up both the Alstead Village fire station and the station in East Alstead to house evacuees, and Lyons and Anderson continued to go door to door through the early morning hours to warn people of the pressing danger.

They knocked on doors until about 6 a.m., Lyons said. They rang the doorbell, and if that didn’t work, they turned on the police lights and sirens. They’d wait as long as possible for a response before they had to move on to the next house.

“When you’re in a position like that, you need to make a decision,” Lyons said. “And you need to do it fast. We stayed as long as we could, we did everything we could to get people to leave, but we couldn’t wait forever. We had other houses to get to.”

When they couldn’t reach some residents, they tried again soon after.

“We went to some houses for a third time,” Anderson said. But even when they did get a response, some people insisted on staying.

“That’s something I don’t understand,” he said. “They’d ignore you, and then, the third time, they’d finally come to the door, and they’d cuss you out. Some of them wouldn’t leave.”

While Lyons and Anderson continued to alert residents, Kercewich manned the emergency center at the police station, and Crosby replaced Assistant Fire Chief Michael Kercewich, who was stationed at the Cooper Hill culvert.

“I stayed with that culvert until about 6 in the morning,” Crosby said, “until I knew it was going to go over the top.”

He called Lyons, who then went back to houses below the Cooper Hill culvert, and Crosby went down to River Street, to put out the call to residents along the Cold River the town was about to take on a disaster.

By the time it hit Alstead Village, at 7:19 a.m., Sunday, Oct. 9, the water surge stood at least 10 feet high, Crosby said. It came driving through the center of town like a hurricane, taking out much in its path, he said.

“You’ve never heard anything like it,” said Anderson, the resident riding with Lyons throughout the night. “You could hear cars and pieces of building breaking off, trees snapping. Screeching, tearing. It’s the worst thing you ever heard.”

Lyons, Kim Kercewich, Crosby and Anderson ran ahead, instructing residents to seek higher ground before the water hit.

People stood on the bridge that divided town, watching, Lyons said, and Anderson ran across, moving residents only seconds before the water hit.

“He saved a bunch of people,” Lyons said. “I don’t think he realized how easily he could have died” a notion that escaped them all, according to the police chief.

“You’re not thinking about (dying) when you’re in the situation,” he said. “All you’re thinking is how to get people safe. That’s the most important thing.”