Nor'easter leaves destruction in its path

Residents in East Rockaway and Lynbrook emerged from their homes on Sunday morning to assess the damage after a massive nor’easter ripped through the area with high winds and driving rain.

“We have 25 trees down around the village, and we’ve cleared those that weren’t involved with wires,” said East Rockaway Village Administrator John Mirando. “We sent crews out at about 4 p.m. on Saturday, but trees were still coming down around them, so we called them back in until the storm was over.”

Trees were uprooted not only here but in many Long Island communities, and there was widespread, extensive damage to vehicles and property. Some residents were still without power in part of East Rockaway and Lynbrook on Tuesday, mostly due to downed power lines.

“We heard a terrible sound — it was very loud, very scary,” said Michael Dunne, who, along with many of his neighbors on Grant Avenue in East Rockaway, lost power at 4:30 p.m. on Saturday when a large tree on the opposite side of the street crashed down onto a utility pole on their side, snapping and toppling the pole.

“Luckily, some of our neighbors have partial electricity,” said Dunne’s wife, Brigid, “so we took the kids over there. They were very frightened.” Michael Dunne said there were small flames and sparks when the pole came down, and that they couldn’t immediately get through to 911 because of what a recorded message said was high call volume.

Mirando explained on Monday that the Department of Public Works could not yet clear trees that were entangled in electric wires, and was waiting for the Long Island Power Authority to work on them. “We’re getting the other [trees] down,” Mirando said. “But residents are still responsible for trees that fall on their property. Even if it’s a neighbor’s tree, they have to call their insurance company.”

East Rockaway Fire Department Chief Ed Reicherter said that the volunteers answered more than 60 calls on Saturday from about 1 p.m. until midnight, almost 10 times the normal volume. “We got calls for wires down, trees into houses, and for two small fires that seemed to have started from downed electric wires,” Reicherter said. “There were some car accidents, but all in all, no one that was hurt too badly.”