Edgartown selectmen this week praised the town’s emergency response team for their work during tropical storm Irene, including the police, fire, highway and information technology departments.

“Your team was unbelievable, it was amazing to watch,” said selectman and board chairman Arthur Smadbeck at the board’s weekly meeting Monday. “I think Edgartown was very well served. I don’t think we were over-prepared, I think we were prepared. It’s an act of nature; there’s no reason that anybody should say it wasn’t this or wasn’t that, it was a huge storm and it came and gave us a storm surge and everything else. I compliment you [Peter Shemeth] as the leader and the entire team, thank you very much.”

Mr. Shemeth, who is the Edgartown fire chief and emergency response director, described the logistics that went into coordinating all the departments, which included conference calls with the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency and National Weather Service in Boston, closing the Chappaquiddick Ferry, opening a shelter at the Edgartown School and keeping the public updated throughout the storm.

Mr. Shemeth said he worked with police chief Antone Bettencourt throughout the storm.

“Chief Bettencourt and I worked together as far as road closures, we had an idea basically what the weather was and what we were going to do and implemented it as it was needed and tried to wait until the last minute to implement it,” Mr. Shemeth said. “Selectman Smadbeck was at all meetings along with other selectmen and they were very well informed of what was going on . . . we were probably over-prepared but we never knew if it was going to change course or intensify.”

He gave special thanks to Adam Darack, the town’s information technology manager, who posted updates of road and beach closures and shelter information on the town Web site, and made deft use of the town’s reverse 911 call and text messaging system.

As a result of his hard work, the selectmen gave Mr. Darack a new title; he will now be the town public information officer.

The young IT standout had his own high marks for the rest of the emergency response team.

“A lot of times in a situation like this people in charge of the situation end up complimenting everybody else, but what Chief Shemeth and [police] Chief Bettencourt did was remarkable,” he said. “Everyone worked seamlessly because of these two guys . . . worth their weight in gold.”

Harbor master Charlie Blair said the town was fully prepared for a strong hurricane, even though in the end the Island thankfully was spared the worst. “You can’t prepare enough for a hurricane,” Mr. Blair said. “Boatyards on-Island and off-Island, they did a tremendous job, hundreds of boats were hauled . . . and they did a terrific job of securing people’s boats. We were left with around 100 boats in the harbor, and the last day of August that’s going from 700 to down to 100. Thanks to Peter [Shemeth], [highway superintendent] Stuart Fuller, and Adam [Darack], I never had to worry about anything but the harbor. It couldn’t have been better.”

Mr. Blair said a few boats drifted onto beaches and a handful of small boats sank, but mostly the storm was without incident.

“I cried wolf really hard for over a week and I just hope people understand how lucky we were to have had landfall in New York city,” the harbor master said. “If it had been Edgartown it would have been a different story.”

Mr. Fuller reported one electrical outage on Plantingfield Way and minimal tree damage.

Mr. Smadbeck thanked the 24 extra crews sent by the utility company NStar for their swift response.

“They were above and beyond the call of duty,” he said. “When the power goes out that’s who people rely on . . . we’re very lucky.”