Help sought to halt Dune Road flooding

Residents who live along Dune Road came to Tuesday's town board meeting to ask for help fixing the crumbling road, which is prone to such flooding that residents say they must time leaving their homes around the moon's cycles and tides.

Southampton Town appropriated $100,000 at its Nov. 18 meeting to begin an engineering study that will look for a solution.

The 5-to-6-mile stretch of Dune Road in question -- from the Shinnecock Inlet to the East Quogue Village line -- sits on a narrow strip of sand that divides Shinnecock Bay from the Atlantic Ocean. Along the road are waterfront homes, some worth millions of dollars, as well as restaurants and resorts vital to tourism.

"It also has the second largest commercial fishing industry out of Shinnecock Inlet," said Southampton Councilman Christopher Nuzzi, who sponsored the legislation to fund the study. Dune Road "is the lifeblood of our economy west of the Shinnecock Inlet."

The flooding problems, which residents and officials say have gotten progressively worse in the past few years, also pose public safety risks, said officials and residents, who tell stories of cars being flooded and stalling. Residents worry that emergency vehicles will not be able to pass once water breaches the vulnerable road.

Robin Eshaghpour, who lives on Dune Road, said flooding has ruined two of his cars. "We really need something done," he said at the meeting.

Paul DiCenso, a 30-year resident, said he has to time errands to the tide table so as to not get caught out of the house during high tides.

Officials have long said that the answer is raising the road, at a cost estimated at $8 million -- about 10 percent of the town's operating budget and more than three times its annual road improvement allocation.

Nuzzi said he wants the engineering study and approvals for all regulatory documents to happen simultaneously so the project is "shovel-ready" as the town looks for funding. Dune Road is a "county-system" road, although historically maintained by the town.The town has long wrestled with flooding along Dune Road. Supervisor Anna Throne-Holst said the entire project would be too costly for the town, but she and Nuzzi said they hope the county, state and federal government can help.