Life in the wake of Gloria: An epic hurricane transforms LI, its people and, eventually, its power company

This originally appeared in the book "Long Island: Our Story," on Nov. 15, 1998.

Eleven days and eight hours after Hurricane Gloria knocked out their electrical service, the lights finally went on in Richard and Carol Mogil's Centereach home.

"We were among the very last to get our power back," Richard Mogil recalled. "It was very painful for us. We waited and we waited. We boiled water and did all our cooking on a gas grill in the backyard. We couldn't take hot showers, and you can't believe how you miss that after a while.

"It really got old quick," he added. "It was such a relief to see the truck coming down our street that last day."

On Oct. 8, 1985, a terse statement read by a Long Island Lighting Co. spokesman said the utility's power system, devastated when Hurricane Gloria roared ashore on Sept. 27, had been restored to normal. All over Long Island, homeowners who had not been able to flush their toilets, take a shower, cook dinner in an electric oven or flick on the lights, breathed deep sighs of relief. Their regional nightmare was over.

As hurricanes go, there had been far worse ones than Gloria - the storm of 1938, for instance. Photographs of Westhampton Beach after the hurricane of 1938 showing overturned cars and mountains of lumber from wrecked houses have an unreal quality to them, as if no storm could possibly have done such damage. Gloria, though, did far more to change Long Island than any previous storm. As soon as the lights blinked out on Sept. 27 - to stay out, in some neighborhoods, for a week or more - Gloria became as much a political storm as a weather event.

First, Gloria showed Long Island's weak underbelly: Without power from the region's principal supplier, LILCO, the nearly 750,000 customers who lost it could barely carry on their day-to-day lives. Routine events were turned into ordeals. Because Long Island Rail Road crossings did not work, train service was cut back dramatically, and trip times were extended. A commuter train from Southampton that normally took two hours to reach Manhattan took eight hours. Hundreds of schools were closed because buildings were too dark to conduct classes in, and consumers across the region complained of being gouged for such items as water, ice, generators, milk and bread.

Second, Gloria — and the long time it took to get electrical service back to normal — greatly magnified the antagonism toward LILCO many Long Islanders already felt. It embittered homeowners who had never given more than a thought to the utility, and drew thousands of converts to a burgeoning anti-LILCO movement, which eventually forced the closing of the utility's Shoreham nuclear power plant and, earlier this month, the sale of the company itself.

"There is no question that Hurricane Gloria changed Long Island in profound ways," said Lee Koppelman, executive director of the Long Island Regional Planning Board. "We were a different kind of place after Gloria."

Born in the south Atlantic Ocean, Gloria plodded its way up the East Coast before landing on Long Island with 100 mph winds one morning in early fall. Of the 11 deaths attributed to the storm across the Northeast, only one was on Long Island. However, a third of the $300 million damage caused by the storm occurred here. On South Shore barrier beaches, 48 summer homes were ripped off their foundations and smashed to pieces.

As the storm passed to the north, more than two-thirds of LILCO's customers were left without power. In many communities without municipal water systems, that meant - in addition to having no electricity - they were also without water for household use. Toilets could not be flushed and clothes could not be washed. "It was hard from the beginning," Mogil said, "but as the days added up and there was no remedy in sight, it got horrible. We kept calling and calling LILCO, but we could never get through."

To attack the widespread destruction of their supply system, LILCO brought in utilities from across the Northeast. But the pace of recovery was slow, and as power was restored unevenly in many communities, crews were jeered and booed by angry homeowners.

Four days after Gloria struck, Long Islanders were increasingly feeling the pinch — from the long waits for ice and commuter trains to the long days and nights without power. But the brunt of their criticism went to LILCO, and its chairman, William Catacosinos, who was on vacation in Italy when Gloria brought the worst disaster in the utility's history. That the chairman chose not to rush home was the final indignity to many Long Islanders. "If it was me, I would have gotten my ass on the first plane back," Nassau County Executive Francis Purcell declared at the time. "I would have swum back if I had to."

Catacosinos did come home a few days after the storm hit - and promptly announced that LILCO wanted to charge ratepayers for the estimated $40 million storm repair bill. In defending the proposal, LILCO said it had no hurricane insurance, and a storm reserve fund had a negative balance. Who else but the ratepayers could pick up the costs?

Gov. Mario Cuomo characterized the idea of billing customers for the damage as "chutzpah," adding that Long Islanders "aren't that stupid" to accept it. Purcell called it "outrageous," and Suffolk County Executive Peter Cohalan said it was "unconscionable." By the 11th day, as power came back on in Centereach and other neighborhoods hardest hit, the public backlash against LILCO reached a crescendo. That day, a group called Citizens to Replace LILCO announced plans to take over the company and operate it as a public utility. During the next 13 years, the Long Island Power Authority was created, Shoreham was abandoned, and the most reviled company on Long Island ceased to exist.