LIers take refuge ahead of Hurricane Irene

Colleen Bernard sat in the cafeteria of Brentwood High School Saturday, playing cards with a friend as they waited out Hurricane Irene in one of Suffolk County's 19 emergency shelters.

The Bay Shore resident, who uses a wheelchair, said she didn't feel safe inside her mobile home.

"I know I have somewhere to sleep," Bernard, 56, said about the safety of being in a shelter.

She was among thousands of people across Long Island who have taken refuge at schools and other facilities, bringing along bags of food, clothing, games and bedding, as they're unsure of when they'll be able to return home or what they'll find when they do.

Rachel Robertson of Wantagh and her three children unloaded their minivan in the parking lot of Wantagh High School, where they'll spend the night in the school's gymnasium. The family, which lives in an evacuation area south of Merrick Road, packed pillows and sandwiches to help them wait out the storm.

"This is my first time in a hurricane and I don't know what to expect," Robertson said.

Nassau County opened 25 shelters, with the busiest at Nassau Community College and Farmingdale State College.

Each shelter has at least 400 cots, air-conditioning, water and canned food, said John Sarcone, county director of housing and homeless services. The Red Cross is arranging for hot meals at some locations, he said.

The community college shelter reached capacity -- more than 1,000 people -- by late afternoon.

"I was set to stay home," Jerry Parkes, 84, of Long Beach, said as he sat on a cot beside several neighbors. "But with each report, people were getting more frantic. It really frightened us."

By late evening, Red Cross officials said available shelter sites in Nassau and Suffolk counties had a total capacity of about 25,000 people.

Officials have identified 15 sites that, including the available shelters, could accommodate up to 60,000 people.

"This is untested waters for a lot of us at the Red Cross," said agency spokesman Craig Cooper. "Long Island hasn't had a potential disaster like this for decades."

Nassau and Suffolk have a total of 1,000 registered Red Cross volunteers, with support from other regions available, Cooper said.

Suffolk County opened its shelters in conjunction with the Red Cross and reported that 787 people took advantage of the emergency lodging as of Saturday evening.

In the gymnasium at Riverhead High School, many of the 120 people using the shelter sat on simple green Red Cross cots, surrounded by suitcases and black garbage bags filled with their belongings. They talked on cellphones or worked on laptops, talking quietly among themselves under the scoreboard proclaiming the school to be the Home of the Blue Waves.

Pet-friendly shelters opened in Islip and Riverhead for families with traditional pets.

"No snakes, no horses," emergency commissioner Joe Williams said.

The Red Cross opened a shelter at Walt Whitman High School that would accommodate as many as 1,000 people.

Eleanor Bredow, 59, of Huntington, didn't want to ride out Irene by herself.

"I'm concerned about being alone, about flooding, about power outages and branches coming down," she said at the school. "Now I'm not alone -- it's nice."