Hurricane Earl doesn't pack a punch

That's all ya got, Earl?

The little hurricane that could have - well, he didn't.

Despite a worry-filled week of warnings, stormy forecasts and emergency closures, Hurricane Earl passed well east of Long Island early Saturday without causing widespread trouble.

"All told, we did well," said Joseph Williams, Suffolk's emergency management commissioner. "We're not aware of any trees down, power lines down."

At the start of the Labor Day weekend, perhaps the worst damage Earl wrought was some strong waves and riptides.

"You always plan for the worst and hope for the best," Williams said. "We have numerous hurricane drills a year. This made us, under a live event, set up things and look at it."

Westhampton Beach saw about 2.62 inches of storm rainfall and Shinnecock Hills had peak wind gusts of 39 mph, the National Weather Service said.

The Long Island Power Authority sent home 1,600 out-of-state workers yesterday. And no one needed help from the Red Cross because of the storm.

Most beaches reopened Saturday, though some continued to restrict swimmers, and trains and ferries went back to their regular schedules.

There is a "moderate risk" of riptides Sunday, said meteorologist Lauren Nash, down from Saturday's "high risk" warning.

The Long Island Rail Road ran all of its Montauk branch trains Saturday, even adding two trains from Penn Station. Fire Island ferries from Bay Shore were on a regular schedule, and many state parks were opened, though a free concert was canceled at Jones Beach Field 4 last night because of flooding.

LIPA, which anticipated the hurricane might cut power to thousands, instead saw just dozens of outages overnight.

Westhampton Beach had no flooding or evacuations, said Sgt. Thomas Hubbard of the Westhampton Beach Police. "It really amazed me," he said. "Being on the ocean, we were so lucky."

Beaches and areas along Dune Road were eroded, but Westhampton Beach Mayor Conrad Teller said it was "nothing earthshaking, since the winds weren't as high as predicted."

Still, the fear was enough to cause trouble for some. Hoteliers at a handful of East End destinations said fear of Earl ruined their business for the weekend.

"The hurricane cost me a tremendous amount of money," said Henry Uihlein of Uihlein's Marina & Motel in Montauk Harbor. "People did not come to my motel and my boat rentals didn't go out."

It was a sad coda to a booming summer, he said.

"It was the best and sunniest summer I've ever had, and this would have been the last hurrah," he said. "But what can I do? I can't control Mother Nature."

At Paumanok Vineyards in Aquebogue, owner Charles Massoud had been bracing for a disaster. He spent most of Friday night watching The Weather Channel and waiting for the storm to hit. By 1 a.m. Saturday, he realized Earl had passed Long Island and his vineyard had been spared.

"We dodged a major bullet," a relieved Massoud said as he sat looking at his perfectly aligned vines.

He and his staff had been preparing for winds of up to 80 mph and several inches of rain, which could have damaged vines and ruined grapes.

Instead, at Earl's peak, the wind at Massoud's vineyard was 14 mph, according to a weather station he installed last year, he said. His vines got 1.44 inches of rain.

"On a fair day like today, the wind is faster than the tropical storm yesterday," he said with a smile. "We were enormously lucky. The outcome couldn't have been better."