A nightmare before Christmas

East Rockaway residents woke up to several feet of flooding and thousands of dollars in damage on Friday, Dec. 23.

Brian Barry, an East Rockaway resident for 17 years, lost his handicapped-accessible chair lift and two cars to the flood. His basement was flooded, along with the cars. Barry’s insurance does not cover such damage.

This storm took him by surprise. Barry had just returned from a trip to Virginia, where he was visiting a sick relative.

“I have a cousin of mine who has pancreatic cancer in Virginia,” he said. “So I decided I would rent a car from Enterprise and drive down there.” He got back to East Rockaway on Dec. 22 and thought the weather wasn’t too bad.

That is, until his wife woke up early the next morning to see everything flooded. “My wife woke up at about 6:15 in the morning, and she looked out the window and couldn’t believe it,” Barry said. “Everything was completely underwater.”

Along with his own vehicle, the rented car was also flooded. “All the cars were already flooded, and you couldn’t even move them at that point,” Barry recounted. He rushed to check his basement, where he found standing water as well.

“I have a first-floor basement, which means that the basement is at ground level,” Barry said. “And my wife and I went down there, and the water is pouring in the door.”

Barry said he was frustrated because he has been paying taxes over the past 17 years and the town still hasn’t fixed the constant flooding issue. “Between school and local taxes, I’m paying $15,000,” he said.

Barry is disabled after suffering a stroke, which makes his chair lift his lifeline. However, it was damaged beyond repair during the storm. “My $38,000 handicap chair lift out front is now no good,” he said. “The water caused the chair to start moving uncontrollably and then it started to smoke.”

He had to cut the electric off to the chair, but his power to his house also was turned off from the storm. “The deep freezer with all the Christmas food got all ruined and it was such a tragedy,” Barry said.

According to Barry, this has been the same story for his neighbors.

“They’ve been towing cars out of my block for the past week,” Barry said. “I’ve been living here for 17 years and obviously the money that they’re using our tax dollars for on infrastructure, isn’t really effective.”

Barry said the flooding was akin to hurricane Irene. “Hurricane Irene inundated our properties,” Barry said. “My house was not raised like it is now, but I would have to say that the water level was probably equivalent.”

In a word, Barry described this storm as a “beast” and said, “it was Hurricane Irene all over again.”

Barry believes that this storm, which was dubbed Winter Storm Elliot, should have had the same FEMA response as Hurricane Irene did. “At what point is the town, or state, or FEMA going to be held responsible to help homeowners and or residents from this storm?”

Even without financial help from FEMA, Barry would at least like the town to follow through with their promise of drudging nearby canals.

“We’re being flooded by the Grand Canal, which humans built for the purpose of swimming, boating, and clamming,” Barry said. “And we’ve been told for years that they would drudge the canal, go in there, dig it down, put up barriers at the end of all corner streets so there is no reason we should still be flooding out. We have to suffer because the town doesn’t want to spend the money to take the easy way.”

Barry is not optimistic the town will help in the near future. As of now, the main source of help is through the National Weather Service as they send out warnings before storms like these hit. According to the National Weather Service of NY’s Warning Coordination Meteorologist, Nelson Vaz, the flooding was not surprising.

“It was not unprecedented, but the water levels reached at East Rockaway Inlet, 6.85 feet, were approximately a half foot below the water levels seen during tropical storm Irene in 2011,” Vaz said. “Certainly the highest water levels we have seen since Sandy in 2012, but four feet lower than Sandy.”

Vaz expects flooding like this to become more frequent.

“Rising sea level is the primary concern with climate change for resulting in more frequent nuisance coastal flooding events and providing a higher baseline for the magnitude of these events along the eastern US in the future, he said.”

There are ways to prepare for flooding events like these in the future. Vaz said to know your risks, stay weather aware, prepare your home, assemble an emergency kit, and evacuate if ordered.