Ruzicka said that the building was flooded by just over 3½ feet of water, which destroyed desks, furniture and everything else inside. The village hired a company to freeze-dry all of its records and try to recapture whatever information it can. 

Village Hall will be unusable for some time, Ruzicka said. The village may have to tear it down and rebuild because the cost to repair could be greater than that of replacing it, Ruzicka said.

“It’s going to be a long haul,” he said. “It’s going to be down a year, a year and a half, maybe two years. Who really knows? It depends on whether we tear it down and build new or fix it. I would prefer to do it new.”

Village garage

The garage, which is on slightly higher ground, was flooded by about two feet of water. “It did damage some equipment, but most of our equipment was all right,” Ruzicka said. He added that some of the smaller equipment on the floor was ruined, but is replaceable.

Island Park Fire Department

IPFD headquarters, on Long Beach Road, was flooded by about 3½ feet of water, which destroyed an engine, an ambulance and two chiefs cars. The rest of the vehicles were in Oceanside, away from the flooding.

The boiler room and everything on the first floor of the building was destroyed, and all of the walls up to the flood line have been torn out.

“That was their recreation room that they themselves paid for to fix up,” Ruzicka said. “All of their refrigeration units and everything that was there, gone.”

The firehouse is still operational. Ruzicka said he hopes repairs will be completed sometime next spring.

Island Park Jewish Center

Flooding took out the Jewish Center’s boiler and much of the electrical system. Everything in the office — papers, computers and more — was destroyed. 

The second-floor sanctuary was undamaged.

In late September, a pipe burst in the building, flooding the first floor, which turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Because of that small flood, most of the building’s contents had been moved and all of the walls had already been cut away, said Jan S. Rothman, the center’s co-president.

Island Park Public Library