As a high school junior living in Amsterdam at the time, I remember the collapse very well. There was some sort of event at the high school that morning, and I first heard about the collapse while there. It wasn't until afternoon that the scope of it became more clear to me. It's one thing to see pictures and video of a disaster but it's another when it's in a familiar place. I remember driving out toward Fonda on NY 5 to look across the river at that area, and then across to Fort Hunter Road, just off NY 5S, which is the overpass just up the hill on the east side of the Thruway from the Schoharie Creek. It was a popular spot to go to look at the surreal scene -- the empty Thruway heading down the hill, then simply disappearing just beyond emergency vehicles, where the bridge was supposed to be, then reappearing undamaged on the other side.
As seen in the Recorder article posted upthread, the local traffic problems were pretty nasty between the time of the collapse and the construction of the detours onto the 5S and railroad bridges downstream. I worked at a small pet shop on West Main Street in Amsterdam, just west of where the NY 5 "arterial" in Amsterdam ends for a short 2-lane run along West Main before expanding back to 4 lanes in Fort Johnson. There was traffic like I had never seen before or since. Nonstop. After a time, more traffic took longer detours like US 20, but at first, everyone was dumped onto 5 between Amsterdam and Fonda.
I also remember taking the detours once they were complete: travelling along the familiar Thruway, then a very unfamilar ramp to get down to the bridges, familiar bridges (at least the 5S one), then another unfamilar ramp back up to the Thruway. The ramp on the west side did cut right across very rich farmland, as it was on a flood plain near the confluence of the Schoharie Creek and Mohawk River. There was talk that the farmland would never be the same again, but it did seem to recover and the farmstands were reopened.
Last summer's floods following Tropical Storms Irene and Lee brought back more memories and some similar traffic problems. As the Schoharie Creek was destroying everything in its path and the Mohawk was experiencing record flooding, many roads were closed. This included all crossings of the Schoharie Creek. Once again, traffic intending to take the Thruway was being routed into Amsterdam and nearby areas. This time, it couldn't just be routed onto NY 5, as many parts of that were also under water.
The flooding in 2011 had very significant effects on the farmland that was previously used by the Thruway detour ramps. The creek was so high that it was passing under the Thruway overpass of Route 5S in addition to the Schoharie Creek bridge. All sorts of debris were littered on that farmland. I have a few pictrues of this at
http://www.teresco.org/pics/flood-20111015/ As of last month, Karen's Produce (the old Dufel's, I believe) is back up and running, but there was no sign of activity at Pines, my long-time favorite place to pick up sweet corn...
The flood also damaged the Route 5S bridge again. It was determined that it was easier to improve the railroad bridge and abandon (to the bike route that formerly used the railroad bridge) the 5S bridge. For a time, 5S was again closed to traffic, but it has since been rerouted, permanently, onto the old railroad bridge:
