Good Night Irene

Like any homeowner surveying their property’s damage, it’s difficult to know where to begin. We keep hearing the phrase, ‘we’re lucky’because it could have been a lot worse’. Although it is certainly true, try selling that philosophy to a 64 year old homeowner in virtual denial regarding his little castle’s horrific storm damage.

Although a healthy percentage of homes damaged lost power and some expected to be without electricity for sometime, flooding seemed to be the storm’s most costly’by-product. Millions of dollars will be the final Long Island loss total when all the damages are tabulated. From expensive furniture and rugs/carpeting to relatively new appliances and home heating components, property owners were viciously struck by this angry storm and no telling how many months it will take before the storm’s memory’can be erased.

It wasn’t because we were unprepared. For more than a week we were bombarded with predictions and preparations advice including heeding mandatory evacuations alerts. In one Long Beach neighborhood, police cruisers slowly drove along streets warning residents to leave their homes and find safe havens on higher ground as soon as possible. By Saturday at 6:00 p.m., 14 hours before the storm was expected to reach its harshest state, residential sectors appeared as ghost towns we’ve witnessed in classic cowboy films. Most got out of harm’s way although as many as a third remained to ride the storm out for a number of personal reasons from a once-in-a-lifetime adventure to not wanting to leave their pet alone to security concerns that there wasn’t enough of a police presence of Long Island’s finest’who were obviously spread too thin.

Villages, cities, townships and counties did all they could to reduce the storm’s emotional impact while getting the message across this was a category one storm of lethal proportions and should be treated accordingly. The storm’s’east cast death toll had climbed to the mid-twenties by Wednesday.