Your loyal staff, myself and Jason Bass, decided to journey as far south into Freeport as we could find. Jay brought a video camera, and I took a few quick shots as we went to investigate. As we begin to take stock of what exactly hit us last night, I have to admit that in all of my twenty-eight years, I've never seen a storm as bad as Hurricane Sandy has been.
When we drove through North Freeport, we saw downed trees and power lines; the norm, one could say, for a hurricane. We were impressed, but it wasn't anything unusual.
Down at the corner of Archer and Church streets, we checked in on a friend's parents. Outside, we found the first of many manhole-covers which were bubbling over; the water from them was dribbling right into a nearby storm-drain, making me worry about how much water was still in town.
Then we got to Randall Park and Giblyn School, and we saw how much water there still was, even at a relatively low tide time. We spoke to school staff, and they informed us of the obvious; the building had water in it. We investigated my (dad's) house, and the basement was filled with water; oh, and the ground smelled vaguely like oil, from where oil containers had gotten loose. It was bad, but was it really the nightmare that the news was painting it as?
Yes.
The Nautical Mile
We went up the Nautical Mile and we saw boats knocked over, entire gangplanks flipped out of the water and onto the land, and property damaged abound - entire buildings were lifted up and displaced. Then, we got to the "big fish" of the news night; Tropix and Fiore Brothers Fish Market. The scene was saddening, alright; the buildings were collapsed, charred. It was pretty bad, alright.
Then we saw the fire department's lights behind us.
Hose #1, Hose #4, and even Floral Park trucks rolled up on the scene. I thought I saw hints of smoke. They investigated, and one of the firemen suggested that a secondary fire might emerge. After all, he said, the flooding made it impossible to properly put it out the first time. He informed us that this fire, along with others in Freeport, were probably caused by people who evacuated and forgot (it's not a common thought) to turn off their fuse boxes.
We also spoke to Daniel Wright (video will hopefully follow!), he told us that his building, the condos right next to Sea Breeze park, had flooded up to the first floor. He'd also seen (and is hopefully in possession of pictures of!) the fires at Tropix and Fiore Bros. He'd never seen anything like it; and we hadn't either.
And we weren't up to the biggest shock of the day.
Charred Houses
Very early into Sandy's assault, we heard rumors that houses had gone up in flames. We searched for the location of one of them, on Bryant street, and found it at the corner of Branch and Bryant.
As you can see, the house looks like it was sliced off by some kind of laser beam. Chances are the circuit breaker blew and the house went on fire. What was really shocking about this scene wasn't the smell (it was severe), but rather the bath-tub that was suspended by its plumbing and nothing else; the pipe, impossible to see in this picture, that was still hooked up to a water source and spouting water.
Oh, we saw some other brutal stuff. We saw boats crashed into houses; docks strewn across streets; cars crushed - nice ones, too!; buildings flooded. It was ugly.
But none of it compared to that house.
Food
We decided we wanted food, and swung by Atlantic Pizzeria. They had no electricity, but they were still open because until recently they'd had gas, and could cook. They were happy to warm up any food that they still had sitting around, so we had slices of pizza!
The owner, Frank, told us about how last night he and his co-workers had gotten stuck in the storm. They were okay - their storefront held out, although the back door wasn't exactly stable - but they had filmed how people were walking up and down Atlantic Avenue in the storm. One fool was carrying a child above his head. Another person attempted a rescue via boat, only to need to be pushed along by his quarry. Oh, and a car floated by, too.
Once we'd eaten, we decided to explore outside of Freeport. We decided, on a laugh, to go to Long Beach.
The Local Long Island Community
We took Atlantic Avenue west to Oceanside Road, then took that south to Long Beach. We found some downed trees; nothing new.
So we went to Long Beach. On the way to the actual beach, we were asked what we were doing there. We were reminded a mandatory evacuation was still in effect; news, to us!
I recognize that Freeport had it bad. No two ways about it, and I'm not trying to trivialize what our community has suffered. Long Beach, on the other hand, looked twice as bad. The boardwalk was ripped up and damaged; then there was the retaining wall of the boardwalk which couldn't be found where it belonged - or anywhere, for that matter. The roads were covered with sand, so much so that entire hills existed. Some of those hills had consumed cars.
We investigated some of the damage to the buildings, then watched the ocean for a bit.
We decided to head home. On our way, we saw a number of national guard humvees (They had a very strong Long Beach presence) getting hooked up to one of those stuck cars. We were admonished, again, that a curfew was in place and that we should get lost. We did, mainly because it was starting to rain again and we didn't want any part of the rising waters.
Our respect goes out to those who have helped to save people.
Our sympathies to those who have lost property.
Our video recordings...Hopefully soon! - We've already got stills from the shoot up here!
Be safe!
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