Cleaning up in the Five Towns

There was widespread damage to the beach clubs in Atlantic Beach, the county’s evacuation order made life difficult for Lawrence residents observing Shabbos, and flooded roads and downed power lines throughout the Five Towns made driving hazardous.

Hurricane Irene came and went, but left her mark across Long Island. Downgraded to a tropical storm as it passedover the metropolitan area, the massive storm brought heavy rains and high winds that caused local flooding, toppled trees and power lines and left hundreds of thousands of people without electricity.

The South Shore felt the brunt of the storm early Sunday morning, between 2 and 5 a.m. By the time most residents awoke, the rain had passed, but heavy winds continued to blow throughout the day.

The Long Island Power Authority reported that at the height of the storm, 500,000 homes and businesses lost electrical power. Customer service centers were closed so workers could focus on repairs. Many of the outages were caused when trees fell on power lines.

LIPA brought in repair crews from western states, but officials expect the restoration of power in some areas to take several days.

Metropolitan Transportation Authority bus service was back to normal on Monday, but train service on the Long Island Rail Road was limited, and still suspended entirely on the Long Beach branch as the Herald went to press on Tuesday.

In Atlantic Beach, the Silver Point Beach Club was closed on a Sunday for the first time in its history, and remained closed on Monday and Tuesday due to flooding. A voice mail message asked callers to check back on Wednesday for details on the club’s reopening.

“Terrible, just terrible — I don’t where all this garbage, ladders, bottles came from,” said Madeline Labate, one of the owners and managers of the Clearwater Beach Club in Atlantic Beach. “We’re full of mud from the ocean, it’s all over — we lost cabanas, a bar, a restaurant, it’s a disaster.” Labate said she had no idea when the club would reopen as club officials took photos of the damage on Monday.

Two other Atlantic Beach clubs were closed. The Sun and Surf Beach Club’s recording said members could get an update on Wednesday, and the Plaza Beach Club’s message said the club was closed due to the “devastation of the hurricane” and was being cleaned up, and that members would be receiving an email regarding its reopening.

Atlantic Beach Mayor Stephen Mahler said he thought his community was luckier than his neighbors to the east, in Long Beach. “We were quite fortunate,” Mahler said. “We sustained minimal damage.”

Some 186 LIPA customers in Atlantic Beach were without power at one point,

homeowners along Reynolds Channel had flooded basements and there was flooding by the Plaza, Mahler said. Atlantic Beach’s Public Works employees cleaned up branches and leaves, then moved out to the village’s eight beaches, where shacks were damaged and the buildup of debris and sand made the area unusable.

Lawrence Mayor Martin Oliner’s mission was to avoid leaving village residents feeling abandoned, as Irene’s approach and the county’s evacuation order came as observant Jews in the village were observing Shabbos.

“We didn’t abandon our residents during the period of forced evacuation,” said Oliner, who added that Shabbos “added a degree of complexity to the problem.”

In consultation with several local rabbis, and using Village Hall as an emergency center, the mayor said that the village provided support to residents who remained as well as those who evacuated.

As the skies brightened on Sunday, village employees took to the streets, assessing the damage and trimming trees as they began assisting LIPA in the effort to restore power. Some 1,363 customers were still without electricity on Tuesday. “We were out there by noon [on Sunday] and cleared three or four massive trees on Broadway, and we cleared all debris by 6 p.m.,” said Oliner, noting that despite water damage at the Lawrence Yacht and Country Club, the club had reopened by Tuesday.

Temple Israel President James Rotenberg praised Oliner’s efforts to help residents, and the temple had its power restored just in time to host a wedding on Monday night that had been postponed from Saturday. “The mayor was extremely helpful and astute as he remained on call for the residents,” Rotenberg said, “and he should be commended.”

The Five Towns Auxiliary Police and Nassau County police took on traffic control duty on Sunday, with signals not working, and their presence was calming, Oliner said, adding that he maintained contact with up to 85 percent of village residents through reverse 911 calls. (Residents can sign up for the service at Village Hall or online at www.villageoflawrence.org.)

“We were very much in front of this, as we moved equipment to higher ground and stayed with the ship,” Oliner said of the storm. “We listened to all the weather forecasts and continued to monitor the situation.”

Flooding on Peninsula Boulevard, Rockaway Turnpike and Bayview Avenue in Cedarhurst, a downed tree on Barnard Avenue that pulled down three utility poles, and the 913 LIPA customers who were without power were the biggest concerns for Cedarhurst Mayor Andrew J. Parise.

As many as 25 trees were felled by the storm, Parise said, and village workers and an outside contractor cleaned up the debris and cleared storm drains as well. A full crew worked for two days, piling the tree debris in village parking lots before it was carted away. Parking restrictions and meters were back in effect after the weekend, officials said.

“It was pretty fortunate, the way it ended up,” said Parise, adding that the village’s commercial area suffered no serious damage.

On Monday, Dr. John Santopolo, an endodontist and the president of the Woodmere Merchants Association, spoke to some business owners in the area and discovered that many had sustained minimal or no damage to their offices or stores. “There is a decent amount of cleanup from leaves and trees, but it seemed like we prepared for the worst and we got lucky,” Santopolo said.

In the Hewlett area, where there were several trees down, cleanup began quickly. On Sunday, Hewlett Neck Mayor Stu Troyetsky, Trustee Steve Hochberg and Road Commissioner Ross Epstein oversaw the cleanup of fallen trees and debris. “It could have been worse,” Troyetsky said. “Thank you to County Executive Ed Mangano for calling for an evacuation. We really got lucky this time.”

Though 47 LIPA customers lost power in Inwood, the community appeared to have escaped major damage, according to Friar Larry Duncklee at Our Lady of Council Church. There was some tree, fence and cemetery damage, Duncklee said, but attendees at a Sunday night mass were doing fine. “God really blessed us this time around,” he said.

Brett Lichtenberg contributed to this story.