21 trapped in upstate NY hotel

Officials are concerned that the Gilboa Dam has been breached after all signals to the dam were lost this morning. Downstream from the dam, twenty-one people are stranded in a hotel threatened by the river's rising levels. Via myFOXNY:

A massive effort was underway Sunday to rescue 21-people, including several children, trapped in a Catskills motel as fast rising storm waters surrounded the building. The motel is in Prattsville, N.Y.  The N.Y. National Guard deployed 129 soldiers and several speed boats to try to get to the Green County motel.

John Esquivel spoke on the phone with Fox 5 News.  He is with his family in the Moore's Motel.  He says, when they woke up this morning, they saw rising water.  By the time they got ready to leave, the entire building was surrounded by a 450 yard wide river.

Everyone in the building rushed up to the second floor.  Brown, debris filled waters rose over the entire first floor of the building.  All power and phone service was lost in the building.
Their main concern was if a dam above the motel were to break.

"If that dam breaks, we're going to be in worse shape," Esquivel said in a phone interview with Fox 5 News...Things got so desperate that the adults starting planning what they were going to do if the build started breaking apart or floating away.  Their plans included tying sheets to each other so they would not be carried apart.  They were worried as several mobile homes and cars rushed by, but did not strike the building they are trapped inside.

Update: 51 People Saved From Upstate Motel