I’ve written dozens of times in a decade about my skepticism regarding the safety of Indian Point and with every passing month, little happens to alleviate my worry.

Time was we couldn’t depend on Con Edison to be up front and timely in admitting problems at the plant. There have been engineering and maintenance issues, leaks and unexpected shutdowns.

But over and over, there have been problems with the warning sirens that are supposed to alert residents within the 1-mile zone around the plant in the event of a need to evacuate.

Of course, when a problem reached that threshold is a matter of opinion. I’d like to be alerted far more often than anyone at Entergy or the NRC seems to think necessary.

For years, we saw siren tests in which large numbers of sirens failed to sound, which kind of undermines anyone’s standards for when they should blast us awake. There were times tests couldn’t be conducted because thunderstorms disrupted phone lines. At least once the system that allowed nearby counties to activate the sirens dropped out of service with no one noticing until Rockland officials, running a routine test, discovered the problem.

Finally, the siren system was replaced and went into service after numerous delays. It’s still really undergoing tests, with the original system used as a backup, waiting to be dismantled.

Just Wednesday, they fired up the sirens again and sure enough, 18 of the sirens failed in one way or another.

Although I have faith in the emergency officials who oversee Indian Point’s evacuation plan, I’ve never felt the least bit sure it could would in a real emergency.

Knowing that we still can’t depend on every siren to sound, and loud enough to be heard,  does little to make me feel safe.

When the old Liberty Street School in Nyack, right across from the longtime location of The Journal News on Hudson Avenue, was torn down about three decades ago, I started my collection of bricks made from Hudson River clay in the heyday of the Haverstraw brick industry. I’ve added to the collection periodically since then, with a brick from the old Rockland County Jail and from other old brick structures around the county. I’ve ended up with about a dozen bricks showing the names of about four dozen brick yards that operated there from 1810 to 1942.

Haverstraw became the brickmaking center of the world, with millions of brick transported down the river to New York City, where they fueled the rise of apartment buildings throughout the city.

This Sunday, the Haverstraw Brick Museum celebrates that past glory and the Quadricentennial of the Hudson with the opening of “Moving Bricks on the Hudson,” from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. with a program at 2 p.m.

It’s a chance to learn about the relationship between the industry and the river, with barges and sloops serving as a highway to get Haverstraw’s product to market. Of course, it’s also a change to view the museum’s brickmaking tools, regional brick collection and even a diorama that shows how the industry operated and another that shows how part of the village was swallowed by the river in the great landslide of Jan. 8, 1906, when 19 people died in an avalanche of buildings, earth and clay.

Brick collectors can also look forward to the following weekend, when, on Sept. 26, the museum sponsors an International Brick Swap at Bowline Point Park on the Hudson from 7:30 a.m. to noon.

For information, call the museum, at 12 Main Street, Haverstraw, at 845-947-3505.

You hope that things change, but a rejection of an affordable housing law in Orangetown was pretty much to be expected.

That’s been the prevailing sentiment in town for decades and nothing seems to change it much, not even when there’s what might be expected to be a more sympathetic Democratic majority on the Town Board.

But affordable housing has been a rough sell for a long time. Senior housing projects, which have also encountered considerable opposition from time to time, are hardly affordable and efforts to provide affordable housing for volunteers hasn’t been a quick ride, either.

For too many in Orangetown and elsewhere, affordable housing translates into low-rent, city housing project images and the red flags go up.

But all of Rockland needs truly affordable housing — and yes, it needs to be rental and it needs to be multifamily — or we’re going to keep driving away our college grads starting out on careers and seniors who no longer need the home where they raised their families.

Rejecting the need simply rejects too many people who want to remain in the county they’ve called home.

If the weather has you thinking about things to do indoors, a couple of exhibits I’ve written about may make for interesting alternatives.

Opening tonight at the GAGA Arts Center, 55 West Railroad Avenue in Garnerville, is “Pictures from Croatia: Through the Eyes of Children,” an exhibit of about 50 photos taken by young students of professional photographer Ken Karlewicz. Karlewicz and the five students were guests in Croatia of Robert Benmosche of Wesley Hills, who helped underwrite the trip because of his personal interest in photography and his desire to offer the students a life-changing opportunity. There’s an opening reception this evening from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. at Gaga. Beginning tomorrow, the hours through Oct. 4 will be 4-8 p.m. Friday, 2-6 p.m. Saturday, noon-4 p.m. Sunday.

Closing this weekend is “Fish & Ships: The Hudson River in the History of the Nyacks,” sponsored by the Historical Society of the Nyacks. It’s the centerpiece of Nyack’s Quadricentennial of the Hudson, and traces local history along the river from Dutch settlers to the lasting influences of the Tappan Zee Bridge and New York State Thruway. It ran from mid-June to mid-July and then from mid-August to date. The exhibit, featuring photos, paintings, maps, historic items and documents and much more, will be up for another week or two for visits by appointment or for trips by school classes, but tomorrow and Sunday are it for the 1 to 5 p.m. public hours at 60 Cedar Hill Avenue, Nyack. For information, call 845-704-7343 or e-mail exhibit2009@nyackhistory.org

Ervin Williams of Spring Valley knew this day would come. After all, when he was a young man, his great-grandmother, Hattie Lafayette of Albion, Mich., was older than just about anyone around.

Over the years, he’s made frequent visits back to Michigan, were he grew up, making sure to spend time with his relative, whose life spanned more than a century of history.

When she turned 110, she took on special status as a supercentenarian, individuals tracked by an organization called the Gerontology Research Group, which publishes a verified and constantly updated list of those 110 or older.

In recent years, Hattie Lafayette has been moving up the list. A little more than a month ago, she became the 10th oldest person in the U.S. She was also No. 2 in Michigan and No. 21 in the world, having jumped from No. 31 in just a few weeks.

She still held those spots yesterday when she died at 112 years, 165 days.

The trip to Michigan for her funeral will be a sad one, Williams says, but it’s tempered by the knowledge that she had a long and healthy life, one filled with memories she freely shared of growing up in Alabama and trips around that state with her father — including one when he tried unsuccessfully to shield her from seeing a roadside lynching victim.

Her memories will live on, preserved by her family, Williams says, and in many news accounts of her life and longevity.

Making my way this morning from the Sept. 11 memorial ceremony at Rockland Community College to the Rockland County Memorial in Haverstraw Bay County Park, I stopped for a cup of coffee in Mount Ivy.

Walking into David’s Bagel’s, I passed under their television, tuned to the ceremony at Ground Zero, where first responders this year are reading the names of those lost in the terror attacks.

The first name I heard was that of Bernard Favuzza of Ramapo.

After working for eight years with the list of individuals who perished who had links to Rockland, I knew there would be a burst of familiar names.

There wasn’t much of a line, but as I waited to be served, I heard Sean Fegan, a former Blauvelt resident. Then Kristen Fiedel, whose family lives in New City and Thomas Fitzpatrick, who lived in Tuckahoe, but whose in-laws live in Spring Valley.

Before I left the shop, they read the names of Carl Flickinger of Congers, Thomas Foley, a New York City firefighter from West Nyack and Andrew Fredericks of Suffern, another FDNY member who was a nationally respected fire instructor and expert on hose nozzles.

Steve Furman of Wesley Hills, one of the last few F’s, completed the Rockland roll call  of eight familiar names.

For most within range of that television, they went by without note, just that many more names in a list that would go on for hours.

But for eight families here, for friends, relatives and colleagues, they were the focus of the day’s pain, the day’s memories.

And for one “keeper of the list,” they were faces flashing by in a matter of a few minutes — firefighters, a single mom, the Boy Scout leader, an Irish immigrant, brokers and an investment banker — each one a life story learned over eight long years and every one of them cut short.

A Sept. 11 Mass of Remembrance will be offered this evening at 7 p.m. at St. Francis of Assisi Church, Parrot Road, West Nyack. Last year’s mass was attended by many of the Rockland families who lost loved ones at the World Trade Center. This year, says Mary Novotny, who lost her son Brian in the terror attacks, the families are urged to bring along a photo of their loved one. The mass is open to the public.

It’s no surprise that friends and neighbors have been at the side of Grace and Gregg Cosgrove throughout their darkest hours this week.

It’s what people do in Pearl River, the “Town of Friendly People.”

But it’s more than friendship. It’s love, compassion, understanding and faith, all combined in a community’s heart large enough to wrap around a family — or families — in grief.

There was shock and an outpouring of love when Paula Bohovesky was first missing in 1980 and then found brutally slain the next morning. It’s a love and compassion renewed on anniversaries of her death and every two years since 2005, when her mother Lois and brother Peter have needed help to keep her killers behind bars.

We saw it 10 times over in the hours and days after Sept. 11, 2001, when the hamlet suffered a crushing blow, losing 10 present or former residents including members of the FDNY and the NYPD.

The love for Billy Kayser, who died in an auto crash in 2003, showed when his Pearl River teammates played their baseball season with his uniform jersey hanging in their dugout. And it still shows each year in the Billy Kayser Memorial Little League Tournament.

People stood in line for hours to pay their respects almost a year ago for Bill Harris, who devoted himself to his community and provided steel from Ground Zero for so many Sept. 11 Memorials. They did the same for Liz Houston, a local girl who married a local legend and became one herself for her valiant battle against a killer disease. Throughout her illness she was embraced and comforted by her hometown, just as her extended family was following the young mother’s death.

It’s the kind of thing that happens, perhaps on a smaller, more private, but every bit as meaningful a scale, day in and day out in a hamlet that cares so deeply.

And now, blue ribbons are sprouting across Pearl River, a show of love and solidarity with the Cosgroves in their time of unimaginable pain and sorrow following the death of their son, Chance.

It’s what Pearl River does all too well, all too often — and will assuredly do again — whenever there’s a need for the kind of love we know lives there.