SALON

Sunday, Nov 25, 2012 5:00 PM UTC

Fire Island after Sandy

A quick visit suggests it could have been much worse

By

Topics: rockaways, Superstorm Sandy, sandy, Hurricane Sandy, New York, Fire Island, ,

Fire Island after Sandy (Credit: Alex Halperin)

The November ferry to Fire Island was nearly full, like on a summer weekend, but instead of beach toys and sun hats the passengers brought mops, shovels, buckets and bottles of cleaner. In the roped off cargo area, a pyramid of suitcases piled up, ready to be filled with whatever could be salvaged. I sat with my mother on a bench, like most of the other passengers wondering  how well our house had withstood superstorm Sandy.

Fire Island is a filigree of land about thirty miles long and less than a mile wide off the south shore of Long Island. On a map it resembles an eastern expansion of the Rockaways. But unlike that diverse and vibrant section of New York City, Fire Island is a summer resort of only a few hundred permanent residents. There is minimal infrastructure and no real roads, part of the charm for the tens of thousands of visitors each summer.

Following the storm my mother had received a series of emails about conditions on the island, but it wasn’t until mid-November that most homeowners were allowed to visit and conduct their own inspections. Until then they watched dire YouTube videos and read assessments like this from the Ocean Beach Association:

Aerial photos, quick tours by local officials, and reports from communities indicate that there is widespread and extensive damage to property and infrastructure on the Island. Various photos and eye witness reports that have been posted by people on the Island reinforce these assessments in graphic detail—“Like it was hit by a bomb”  “Never seen anything like it”

For most of my life I’ve heard about the damage done to the house by off-season storms and the on-season tenants. Sandy promised a new level of devastation.

After the ferry arrived at the badly damaged terminal, we walked a few blocks through the shuttered town of Ocean Beach– ice cream shops, dinettes, bars and provisions shops where you can pick up an overpriced kite or sweatshirt. Fire Island is normally quiet but this time the rumble of generators filled the air. Cops and firemen were everywhere and workers from the utility companies rode around in pickup trucks.

And our house? It could have been a lot worse. It’s elevated about four feet off the sandy soil and it appeared that the flood waters had reached about nine inches higher than that. It had soaked most of the furniture and left a  leopard print pattern of silt across the floor. Out back a tree had collapsed on the porch and a five-foot high pedestal had materialized from who knows where. The house probably benefited from its modesty. It possesses no hubristic turrets or balconies. It isn’t too close to the ocean or the bay.

On the path to the ocean, almost all the yards had trees down but few of the houses appeared to have sustained structural damage. At the beach, the scene was much worse. Decks were destroyed, or buried in sand. Siding had been ripped off houses. Indoors, some floors were covered with a fuzzy brown substance that could have been the displaced ocean floor. Heavy equipment like water heaters rested many yards from where they were supposed to be. One beach house had been pushed back into the house next to it, 16 feet the neighbors estimated. The dunes had swept away and a sand diaspora buried porches and filled up the crawl spaces beneath the houses.

Because the use of cars is heavily restricted, Fire Island feels remote both when you’re there and to anyone who might be asked to pay to rebuild it. The damage done to this well-off community is by no means the most pressing legacy of the storm and this weekend the AP implied that rebuilding funds could be scarce:

Critics of federal funding of beach and dune replenishment say U.S. taxpayers shouldn’t pick up the tab for beaches enjoyed by only a fraction of the population. Replenishment backers counter that Congress has approved recovery funds for other disasters including Hurricane Katrina and last year’s tornadoes in Missouri.

Ellen Portnoy whose ocean-facing deck had cracked and now formed an a peak like a roof captured the mood when she said, “I’m heartsick but I feel for all those who have suffered more than we.”

This slideshow shows Fire Island in the early stages of recovery:

Fire Island slideshow

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • The ferry terminal at Ocean Beach. Alex Halperin

    Slide 1

  • A beach house overlooking the ocean. Alex Halperin

    Slide 2

  • The storm pushed this beach house into the one behind it. Alex Halperin

    Slide 3

  • A bike rack in Ocean Beach. Alex Halperin

    Slide 4

  • Sand buried the back porch at this house near the beach. Alex Halperin

    Slide 5

  • This bookshelf shows how high the waterline reached in my family's house. Alex Halperin

    Slide 6

  • Workers fill sandbags before they can rebuild the dunes. Alex Halperin

    Slide 7

  • Ellen Portney on her beach house's broken deck. Alex Halperin

    Slide 8

  • Contractors haul their gear around the island in tricked out golf carts. Alex Halperin

    Slide 9

  • These pillars used to support a staircase down to the beach. Alex Halperin

    Slide 10

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Alex Halperin is news editor at Salon. You can follow him on Twitter @alexhalperin. More Alex Halperin.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 1 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
Oklahoma senator: Tornado aid “totally different” from Sandy aid
1870 points1871 points | 676 comments
vote
Anyone Regret Slashing National Weather Service Budget Now?: With GOP-backed cuts to forecasting agency, experts warn future storms will go undetected and more lives lost
798 points799 points | 359 comments
vote
Oklahoma senator wants to offset tornado aid with other cuts
116 points117 points | 36 comments
vote
Watchdogs: ABC “in danger of losing a lot of credibility” on Benghazi saga
41 points42 points | 8 comments
vote
Horrifying new trend: Posting rapes to Facebook " In Chicago this weekend, prosecutors announced three teenaged boys will tried as adults for aggravated criminal sexual assault after allegedly raping a 12-year-old girl — and posting a video of the attack on Facebook."
20 points21 points | 12 comments

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations