By Anthony Bottan
It was Labor Day 1998, and unusually strong thunderstorms pummeled Long Island. Lynbrook residents remember the sky turning black when a tornado, carrying winds of up to 75 mph, ripped down Merrick Road in Lynbrook, smashing cars, trees and rooftops. By late that afternoon, about 1,200 households had lost power, and the village suffered extensive damage.
The owner of NGL Insurance, Jeff Greenfield, whose office on Merrick Road was damaged by the twister, remembers what his office looked like after it hit. "It looked like a scene from Universal Studios," he said.
The scene Greenfield saw when he arrived at his office was something he will never forget. A foot of water covered the office floor, and the ceiling had a gaping hole where a 10-ton air conditioner had been.
Greenfield's office was missing large hunks of its roof, and the fence around his property was uprooted. He later found parts of the r roof lying on the tracks of the Long Island Rail Road.
"Being in the insurance business, I've counseled people over loss, but it's nothing like when you experience it yourself," Greenfield said.
Vicky Dinielli of Rockville Centre, who worked at the Lynbrook Fitness and Sports building (now Sportime) remembers exactly what she heard that day while she was at work. "All of a sudden, I heard a pop, and we ran over to the east court and there was a hole in the roof," Dinielli said.
Luckily, the fitness center had been closed for renovation since June, and there were very few people working that day. Ironically, the fitness center was scheduled to open the day after Labor Day.
According to the National Weather Service, the peak months for tornadoes in the U.S. are usually April, May and June, and the storms occur typically on unseasonably warm spring afternoons. However, the NWS cautions people to have a tornado emergency plan for their homes and places of work. In the event of a such a storm, residents should seek shelter immediately, preferably in a storm cellar or a steel-frame or concrete-reinforced building.
