Nassau County Executive Edward P. Mangano this evening issued a Conserve Water Order as Hurricane Sandy has caused a critical infrastructure failure at the Bay Park Sewage Treatment Plant. At this … more

“Homecoming” usually conjures images of colorful parade floats and hard-fought football games, but for the students, faculty and staff of East Rockaway and Lawrence high schools, the term has a more basic meaning: the return to their respective school buildings after months of repair following the devastation of Hurricane Sandy. more

The superstorm called Hurricane Sandy will surely go down as one of the U.S.’s most costly and crippling storms, ripping a $20 billion swath of destruction up the Eastern Seaboard, and Long Island’s South Shore was front and center amid the tumult as Sandy’s northern end lashed communities from Bellmore to Valley Stream and from Long Beach to Rockville Centre. Now, after the flooding and the fires, the anxiety and fear, the South Shore must slowly rebuild, one home, one school, one business at a time. more

Like no other storm since the “Long Island Express” of 1938, Hurricane Sandy ripped apart Long Island’s South Shore, lifting docks off their moorings and depositing them miles away, tearing hot tubs from backyard decks and dumping them in the canals that line the coast, and sending boats big and small hurtling out to sea. more

Hurricane Sandy led to one of Long Island’s worst environmental disasters ever, if not the worst. Sandy’s massive storm surge flooded hundreds of South Shore homes. Fuel oil tanks broke loose and floated away, spilling oil as they went. Cars were flooded as well, which sent a witches’ brew of chemicals spilling out. Sewage leaked from the Bay Park Sewage Treatment Plant. more

I came home from work one day last week, weary and a bit overwhelmed from trying to tell the hundreds of local stories that came out of Hurricane Sandy, but happy that I was lucky enough to have my … more

Hurricane Sandy attacked without mercy, leaving more than a million Long Islanders without power and wrecking tens of thousands of homes near the shoreline. Then a second disaster struck. more

Some doctors tell us that us “time heals all wounds,” but for the victims of Hurricane Sandy, a great deal remains to be done, and the public has to be reminded of it as often as possible. more

Part one in a series on how South Shore residents are coping in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. This week we begin in Bellmore-Merrick. In subsequent weeks we plan to spotlight recovery efforts in other communities. more

Hurricane Sandy was our worst nightmare realized. This monster storm packed as much energy as two World War II era atomic bombs, causing massive destruction, the likes of which had not been seen since the Long Island Express of 1938, a now legendary Category III hurricane. Trapped on an island jutting into the Atlantic Ocean, we were front and center when Sandy attacked with a vengeance. Thousands of homes were inundated with seawater and sewage. Hundreds were left uninhabitable. Two and a half years later, we continue to rebuild our tattered shoreline. In this series we will look in the coming months at the Governor’s Office of Storm Recovery’s ongoing effort to reconstruct worst-case homes, businesses and communities that Sandy ravaged on Oct. 29, 2012 — and the myriad issues that residents and officials face as they piece together our shredded infrastructure. At the same time, we will look at state and local officials’ efforts to reinforce Long Island in the hope that we might be able to withstand nature’s fury better when the next monster storm hits. —Scott Brinton, senior editor more