News

Sandy coverage North Hempstead

When superstorm Sandy hit Long Island in October, donations of clothing, food and cleaning supplies reached overwhelming levels, leaving some looking for different ways to offer support. 
 Carol Blumenthal of Roslyn was seeking just such an opportunity at a December meeting of the Long Island Voluntary Organization Active in Disaster (LIVOAD), which coordinated the volunteer and government agencies involved in the Sandy recovery and relief effort. There she met Will Burks, team leader of Americorps St. Louis Emergency Response, who had traveled with his team to assist in rebuilding homes on the South Shore of Long Island. 
 “I asked him what they were eating, and he showed us these freeze-dried packaged meals,” Blumenthal said. “I said, ‘Oh, we can fix that.’” 
 Blumenthal enlisted the help of her temple congregation, the Reconstructionist Synagogue of the North Shore in Manhasset, and formed a relief group to cook meals and collect supplies for the Americorps volunteers. 
 “There was an immediate response,” Blumenthal said. Members of the congregation took turns cooking meals each night and delivering the food to the Americorps team’s temporary house in Garden City. 
 “We work really long hours, and it’s so nice to come home at 8 p.m. and not have to cook,” Americorps volunteer Sara Levine, 24, of Detroit, said. “Our members are really grateful and they wanted a chance to say thank you in person.” 
 Levine and eight of her fellow volunteers got that chance on Friday night, when the Reconstructionist Synagogue held a Sabbath dinner honoring the two groups’ cooperation. The evening began with the ritual of baking challah bread. Americorps volunteers joined the younger members of the congregation in rolling and braiding dough. The bread was then broken and shared during dinner, when the volunteers were asked to sit among the congregation and speak about their recovery efforts. 
 Chelsea Catalano, 22, of Mitchell, S.D., joined Americorps St. Louis in September 2012. She came to Long Island in January, and has been involved in the daily demolition and mold suppression of houses in Long Beach. 
 “I’m always amazed at how grateful the families are that we’re tearing apart their houses,” Catalano said. 
 Between 12 and 30 members of the St. Louis branch have been rotating in and out of Long Island, working six days per week since November. The Reconstructionist Synagogue, whose congregation consists of many mental health professionals, stepped in to offer their services to the overworked team. 
 Susan Liberstein, a school psychologist from Port Washington, visited the Americorps house to speak with the volunteers about the issues they were dealing with. 
 “That night gave them a chance to talk about what they were doing and what they can do to help them deal with their stress,” Liberstein said. 
 The Sabbath dinner was followed by a religious service, which the Americorps volunteers attended. 
 “The ritual of Sabbath is an essential way to close the week for us,” said Rabbi Jodie Siff, “and we felt that including them [the Americorps volunteers] in our religious tradition was a nice way to culminate their time here.”

Temple feeds out-of-town Sandy volunteers

Manhasset synagogue, Americorps Sandy volunteers break bread

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The Village of Manorhaven plans to borrow $710,000 to pay for Sandy-related expenses while it waits for reimbursement from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. 
 At a Jan. 17 emergency meeting, the village board approved issuing a bond anticipation note for $225,000 and a budget note for $485,000 to cover operational and capital expenses it incurred from the Oct. 29 superstorm. 
 At the board’s Jan. 31 meeting, trustee Dorit Zeevi-Farrington said the borrowing was necessary because FEMA reimbursement could take up to a year. 
 The village incurred about $685,000 in expenses, including tree removal, sidewalk and street repair, and flooding, as well as overtime from village workers, according to village attorney Charles Casolaro. The remaining $25,000 of the borrowed amount will go toward interest and fees, Zeevi-Farrington said. The village’s credit rating was recently upgraded to A+ by Standard &amp; Poor’s, leading the village to believe the interest rate will be low, she said. 
 Casolaro said the borrowing would not affect village taxes, and that the village would use the FEMA reimbursement to immediately pay off the debt. 
 Also on Jan. 31, the village board voted to direct Casolaro to draft a moratorium law that would prohibit building in the village’s enterprise district in Manhasset Isle for six months. “These are the only open places we have left,” Trustee Lucretia Steele said at the meeting. 
 The legislation will be the subject of a public hearing at the board’s Feb. 28 meeting.

Village OKs borrowing for Sandy expenses

Manorhaven board OKs borrowing for Sandy expenses

When Meri and Adam Miller sought to remove a tree from their East Hills back yard last summer, the request was denied. The tree was too healthy, the couple was told by the village. 
 Three months later, superstorm Sandy struck, sending parts of the tree into the bedroom of their 3-year-old daughter. The family was safe, having taken refuge at a relative's that night. But a return trip, according to Meri Miller, revealed a near-miss: "The branches were in her crib." 
 The Millers' experience, echoing those of other residents, has prompted the village -- and several North Shore ones -- to re-examine its tree laws. 
 "It was a bad thing," Mayor Michael Koblenz said. "I don't want anyone hurt on my watch." 
 But among property owners and preservationists, the talks have triggered visceral dialogue. One preservationist has threatened a lawsuit to protect trees. 
 At a public hearing, said Richard Oberlander, according to a transcript: "You shouldn't have moved to the village if you don't like trees. Go to Brooklyn where you like cement." 
 Oberlander, 71, a certified arborist who made the comment, said he was frustrated by a backlash against the trees. More should be spent on maintenance, he said, not removal. 
 "Why would you buy a house that's wooded and has a lot of trees, and cut them down," he said later. "<a href="/topics//Long_Island,_NY">Long Island</a> is tree country." 
 Koblenz called that idea "absurd" and costly. 
 Under the current tree law, residents can remove a tree in emergencies; those wider than 5 inches require permits. 
 The new law would give property owners much broader powers, allowing them, for three months, to remove trees that present a danger, could damage their homes, their neighbor's homes, or nearby power lines. 
 William Burton, village attorney, said the proposed law reflects "a new fear that exists: that trees can be dangerous." 
 Koblenz said it is challenging to strike the right balance, especially on the North Shore, where the trees are both treasured and feared. "We don't want people willy-nilly cutting down trees because they don't like where it is." 
 Last summer, <a href="/topics//Sea_Cliff,_NY">Sea Cliff</a> village let more trees be removed without a permit by raising the minimum width in which a permit was needed to 8 inches, from 6 inches. Mayor Bruce Kennedy said a new law might mean upping that number to a foot, or allowing trees to be cut that are more "prone" to cause damage. 
 In <a href="/topics//Munsey_Park,_NY">Munsey Park</a>, tree removals have been made easier, too, Mayor Harry Nicolaides said, describing trees that have reached maturity, or by homes or other "menacing" locations. 
 Not all villages are reacting to Sandy. In <a href="/topics//Roslyn_Estates,_NY">Roslyn Estates</a>, where fines can cost $10,000, mayor Jeffrey Schwartzberg said, residents "have a love affair with trees, and we protect them like our children." The law, waived for three months during Sandy, won't change. 
 "We live in an area that has a tremendous amount of trees," Meri Miller said. "They have to be more lenient." 
 With Jennifer Barrios

TOTREE23

East Hills takes second look at tree laws

TOTREEhs crop 

Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano is urging business owners to use all available resources to get back on their feet after superstorm Sandy, including the county Industrial Development Agency’s Business Recovery Center. 
 “My administration is doing everything possible to help small businesses rebuild in Nassau County as they are the backbone of our economy,” Mangano said in a statement. 
 The Recovery Center offers affected businesses a sales tax exemption on purchases of furniture, fixtures, equipment, machinery and building material needed to reopen. Thus far, more than $1.5 million in exemptions have been issued. 
 The 24-hour center has a&nbsp;hotline — 516-571-1745 — staffed by economic development representatives. All federal, state and local business recovery resources can be accessed at nassaubackinbusiness.org. The county IDA also has an email address where questions can be addressed by economic development professionals — <a href="mailto:LEADs@NassauIDA.org">LEADs@NassauIDA.org</a>. 
 Other resources available to help local businesses are: 
 * The U.S. Small Business Administration, with low-interest loans for businesses and most private nonprofits for physical property losses of up to $2 million. 
 Small businesses and most private nonprofits also can apply for economic injury loans of up to $2 million. Interested businesses can apply at any State/FEMA Disaster Recovery Center or SBA Business Recovery Center, online at<a href="https://disasterloan.sba.gov/ela"> https://disasterloan.sba.gov/ela</a>, or by contacting the SBA at 800-659-2955. 
 * The National Grid Hurricane Sandy Relief Program provides grants up to $250,000 to National Grid commercial, industrial or multifamily residential gas customers for energy infrastructure repairs or replacement, rehabilitation of buildings, and costs associated with replacement of machinery or equipment necessary for business operations. To determine eligibility and for additional information, customers should contact National Grid at 855-496-9359. 
 Above: Firefighters were unable to save Tropix, an outdoor restaurant that opened just months ago on Freeport's Nautical Mile, after it was consumed in a fire that likely is Sandy-related. (Oct. 30, 2012) &nbsp;

Sandy-affected businesses help in Nassau

Nassau urges use of business recovery resources following Sandy

36 liSTORMhs

A little girl looked up anxiously at the front desk clerk of the hotel in <a href="/topics//Massapequa_Park,_NY">Massapequa Park</a> where she was staying with her family and asked: "Do you think Santa will know that I'm here? He usually goes to my house and my house isn't there."
The clerk at that <a href="/topics//Best_Western">Best Western</a> Bar Harbour Inn, Kathie Heloskie, recalled telling her not to worry, Santa would find her.
The child's family was one of the many displaced from homes damaged by superstorm Sandy, and now facing the holidays in a hotel room. Two weeks after the storm, there were no vacancies in <a href="/topics//Long_Island,_NY">Long Island</a>'s hotels, motels and inns. One hotel, a FEMA temporary housing site, reported getting 6,000 calls a day. Now, Sandy's remaining evacuees take rooms wherever they can find them and for however long they can get them. 
It can be hard to drum up holiday spirit amid the worry and weariness created by weeks of dislocation as these families struggle with insurance, work and reconstruction. And yet, families say they find consolation in being together and the comfort of rituals -- even in a hotel.
"Your whole perspective and priorities change, knowing how quickly you can lose the ones who you love," said Tanya Alvino, 31, a marketing director at a Manhattan advertising firm who has been staying with her parents, <a href="/topics//Joseph_(designer)">Joseph</a>, 65, a disabled <a href="/topics//Vietnam_War">Vietnam War</a> veteran, and Deborah, 56, a retired school crossing guard, at the <a href="/topics//Hampton_Inn">Hampton Inn</a> and Suites in <a href="/topics//Rockville_Centre,_NY">Rockville Centre</a> since Nov. 2.
They barely escaped the floodwaters that cascaded into their <a href="/topics//Island_Park,_NY">Island Park</a> ranch, now gutted and ready for an "as is" sale early next year. And though <a href="/topics//Christmas">Christmas</a> at home with friends and relatives is impossible this year, she's reconciled to it. 
"Really, regardless of where you are, as long as you are with your family, it doesn't matter where you live," Alvino said. "As long as you are with the ones you love, you can be at home."
The family salvaged some <a href="/topics//Christmas">Christmas</a> decorations, which are now arranged on an end table in the hotel room: a little wooden Christmas tree, a wooden nutcracker, Santa in a sleigh, and snowmen.
"It's very touching to look at," said <a href="/topics//Joseph_(designer)">Joseph</a> Alvino. He has found it difficult to focus on celebrating Christmas, however, "when you have so much on your plate." It's different for the women, he said. "They want to make things nice."
His son Michael, 33, usually flies home from Los Angeles in time for Christmas Eve dinner. Relatives and friends visit on Christmas Day. This year, the family told him not to come: They'll eat out Christmas Eve and share a quiet Christmas Day in their hotel room.
'I just want to go home'
For Michael Korman, 45, and his wife, Bonnie Alvo-Korman, 44, and their daughter Haleigh, 5, the weeks since muddy, sludgy water flooded their split level on a <a href="/topics//Seaford,_NY">Seaford</a> canal have been exhausting.
After having the sodden contents of their cold, dark house removed, they fled first to her mother's home for a week, then spent another week sleeping on the floor of his father's small apartment in Queens. They finally found a hotel room, for three nights, at the <a href="/topics//Best_Western">Best Western</a> in <a href="/topics//Woodbury,_NY">Woodbury</a>.
They were then directed to the chain's <a href="/topics//Massapequa_Park,_NY">Massapequa Park</a> location: It had available rooms because, at first, its heat and power had not yet been restored.
They've been there for three weeks, first in one room, then when they thought they'd have to leave, a sudden cancellation opened up the room they are now in. 
They hope to stay at least until Jan. 13 when their latest FEMA housing assistance extension runs out. 
Families receive $3,100 a month for housing expenses from FEMA, but funds often don't fully cover expenses of hotel rooms and restaurant food.
"Not to sound like a grinch, but we're not even in the holiday spirit," said Alvo-Korman, a medical biller in a doctor's office. "There's that movie 'The Year Without Santa Claus.' We've had a year without trick-or-treating, <a href="/topics//Thanksgiving">Thanksgiving</a>, <a href="/topics//Hanukkah">Hanukkah</a> and New Year's. Maybe we'll have Valentine's. I just want to go home."
That might take a while. They're waiting for insurance settlements before proceeding with repairs to their now-gutted home.
Trying to keep magic alive
When Hanukkah began Dec. 8, they propped an electric menorah atop the sofa in their room. "I didn't even feel like shopping, but I didn't want to deprive her," said Alvo-Korman. So they shopped, and Haleigh, a bouncy kindergartner whose smiles unveil missing front teeth, received Lalaloopsy dolls and a <a href="/topics//Hello_Kitty">Hello Kitty</a> pocketbook and a stuffed animal backpack with a throw. 
And it isn't quite true that they've missed all the holidays completely: They ate <a href="/topics//Thanksgiving">Thanksgiving</a> dinner at Runyon's Restaurant in <a href="/topics//Seaford,_NY">Seaford</a>, which hosts a feast every year with donated food and volunteers. Said Korman: "They did it right. I was very touched by that. You see a lot of terrible stuff, but you see a lot of good too."
And, said his wife about the hotel staff, "They've been really wonderful."
Maude Kogut, 38, her daughter, Arianna, 7, her disabled sister Audrey, 44, and 71-year-old mother Hannah have been at a <a href="/topics//Holiday_Inn">Holiday Inn</a> in <a href="/topics//Ronkonkoma,_NY">Ronkonkoma</a> since shortly after Sandy hit. Contractors said their Lindenhurst home may be ready by Christmas.
"Four people in one hotel room -- it's hard," Kogut said.
The family celebrates both Hanukkah and Christmas. This year has forced adaptation and substitution, Kogut said. "It's depressing when you can't deliver tradition." 
With candle flames a hazard in a hotel room, Audrey found a card where flame stickers served as menorah lights.
"I'm trying to keep the magic alive at least for her," Kogut said of Arianna. "I want to do everything normal and give my child a Christmas. I'm going to do what I can. If I have to get a little Charlie Brown Christmas tree for our hotel room, I'll do it."
Arianna's "Elf on the Shelf" survived the flooding and now sits in their hotel room. Santa will bring presents, and most importantly, Kogut said, her daughter will continue her tradition of wearing a new Christmas dress.
Arianna loves to get dolled up in frilly pageant dresses, Kogut said, and thanks to the generosity of friends and strangers, this year will be no exception. 
"It makes her feel good," she said. "If that makes her feel good, that's what we do."
With Denise M. Bonilla

Long Island

LIHOTE23

Sandy evacuees spend the holidays in hotels

lihote crop 

A little after 1 p.m. at the Islamic Center of <a href="/topics//Long_Island,_NY">Long Island</a> Friday, Nancy Long nervously waited to finally meet the family she had set out to help a month ago.
Long, 29, of <a href="/topics//Hicksville,_NY">Hicksville</a>, had been at home about a week after superstorm Sandy, eating breakfast and reading Newsday, when she saw an unforgettable image that propelled her to act.
In the photo, a distraught Aiden Guirl, 5, was bawling in his mother's arms -- his little face distorted by heaving sobs -- as the contents of what was once his "Toy Story"-themed room were loaded into the trash. In the background, flood-damaged toys spilled into the street.
"I almost choked on my Cheerios," Long said. "Just the expression on Aiden's face -- crying and crying. I couldn't get the picture out of my mind all day."
Long, a volunteer with the Islamic Center in <a href="/topics//Westbury,_NY">Westbury</a>, decided to help and reached out to Kelly Guirl, Aiden's mom, through a Newsday reporter. About a month after Long and Guirl started emailing each other, they met for the first time Friday, Long standing excitedly next to a table heaped with household goods, food and nontoxic cleaning supplies that she had gathered with the help of the Center.
Guirl, 28, and her husband, Grant, son Aiden and daughter Briana, 2, had been renting a home in Broad Channel, Queens, when 5 feet of bay water mixed with oil from their heating-oil tank filled their house. They lost almost everything; and even items untouched by floodwaters reeked of oil.
The outreach from neighbors and strangers such as Long has been more than she could have imagined, Guirl said. Along with a gamut of household goods, Long also bought Aiden all three "Toy Story" DVDs -- his were destroyed by the flood -- and got Briana a gift card to the <a href="/topics//Build-A-Bear_Workshop,_Inc.">Build-A-Bear Workshop</a>.
As they loaded the goods into boxes to pack into her car, Guirl's mother, Debbie Silva, of Queens, said she's been amazed at the way <a href="/topics//New_York_(state)">New York</a>ers coalesced in the face of Sandy. "People in New York call it as it is, but when they need to help, they're there," she said. 
"It's been overwhelming, really," Guirl said.

Nassau

LITOYS22

Support floods in for family hurt by Sandy

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Some of superstorm Sandy's most vulnerable victims are still stuck in their homes and unable to resume their normal routines because the wheelchair-accessible vans they depended on were destroyed in flooding more than a month ago.
The luckier owners were quickly able to get used ones. But others are still waiting for replacements to be ready and for funding, insurance and loans to pay for them. 
Vans adapted for wheelchairs and customized for handicapped drivers cost $60,000 to more than $80,000 when new. Getting them can take weeks, and -- for more customized vehicles -- months.
"I keep praying, it can't get worse, it can't get worse," said Kenneth Curry, a 47-year-old quadriplegic. He has been housebound since floodwaters destroyed the van he drove, with limited arm motions, from <a href="/topics//Far_Rockaway,_NY">Far Rockaway</a> to an accounting job at a <a href="/topics//Plainview,_NY">Plainview</a> law firm. Compounding his hardship: his motorized wheelchair broke weeks ago.
Curry just found a used van he hopes to buy with a bank loan. He is able to work from home but, "Honestly I'm at the point where it's been a little over a month and I'm going stir crazy in this house," he said. "My life is totally changed now. The storm really did something to me . . . think of it, sitting in the house in one place every day. It's hard."
Peter Zarba, sales manager at Bussani Mobility in <a href="/topics//Bethpage_State_Park,_NY">Bethpage</a>, said between 30 and 40 of its customers lost their accessible vans. A month after the storm, about half were still waiting to replace them, he said.
The disabled face "an additional level of expense, an additional level of delay, a lack of understanding, and limited alternatives," said Zarba, who uses a wheelchair and had to temporarily evacuate his storm-damaged home in <a href="/topics//Island_Park,_NY">Island Park</a>. "It's not like they're hopping on a bus." 
Daniel Rolland, owner of Specialty Conversions in <a href="/topics//West_Babylon,_NY">West Babylon</a>, said about 10 customers lost vans, and half still lacked new ones. John Romano of Abilities Unlimited in <a href="/topics//Deer_Park,_NY">Deer Park</a> said he has customers still grappling with insurance and financing. "Unfortunately, as soon as any of my customers lose their van they're stuck in the house," he said.
Arguing with insurersAndrew Branigan, 22, of <a href="/topics//Massapequa,_NY">Massapequa</a>, is deaf and has <a href="/topics//Cerebral_Palsy">cerebral palsy</a>. Until Dec. 12, he had been virtually homebound, unable to attend classes at <a href="/topics//Nassau_Community_College">Nassau Community College</a>. Floodwaters damaged his house, his wheelchair-accessible van and two family cars.
When the new <a href="/topics//Honda_Odyssey">Honda Odyssey</a> finally appeared in his driveway, he was thrilled. "He just kept saying, 'yes, yes, yes,' " said his mother Jean, who had been "beyond frustrated" by the effort it took to expedite funding to help pay for it.
Before then, she had spent weeks on the phone arguing -- first, with the insurance company <a href="/topics//United_Services_Automobile_Association">USAA</a> over what she said was its failure to cover the replacement cost of the van's ramp system (which she said she believed the policy fully covered), and then, when she turned elsewhere for help covering those costs, with the state and nonprofit agencies that administer the program for independent living in which her son is enrolled.
A USAA spokesman wouldn't discuss specific cases, but said "payments for damaged wheelchair ramps are based on the actual cash value of the equipment at the time the loss occurred." Branigan took their check for $35,000, but says it was too low.
The state eventually agreed to shortcut some of the usual requirements and approved $20,000 for the ramp. While the process may seem "like a long time to Mrs. Branigan, it happened in a very short period of time," said <a href="/topics//Suffolk_County,_NY">Suffolk</a> Independent Living Organization's Christine Rigg, director of the program in which Andrew is enrolled.
Normally, approvals can take months, she said. "It's Medicaid money and we want to make sure that the right modifications are done to make sure the client is safe and traveling safely."
But Jean Branigan, who translates in sign language for her son and takes notes for him at school, resented having to argue for what she saw as logical shortcuts in an emergency. 
"It's not just the storm, it's the way things are run," she said. "It makes you crazy." Before getting the new van her son had "said he's very sad, he's stuck in the house and he misses going to school. He's bored."
Desperate for replacementSheila Hahn, of <a href="/topics//Moriches,_NY">Moriches</a>, is desperate to replace the accessible van she drove for her disabled husband Richard, 78, until the stormwaters destroyed it. Her husband was a scientist at Brookhaven National Laboratory until he suffered a stroke four years ago.
She too fought with her insurance company, Kemper Preferred. The company wanted to give her $18,000 for the van, which she'd bought used six months ago, and would not cover its modifications. Hahn said the van had a higher value and thought she needed at least $30,000 to replace it. 
"I think for the small amount of money I'm asking them for, it's bizarre for them to put me through this," Hahn said. 
A few hours after the company was contacted for comment by Newsday about the Hahns' claim, Sheila Hahn said she was called by the insurers, told there had been a mistake in the original settlement offer, and that she would get $38,000. "The claim has been resolved," said Leslie Kolleda, vice president of marketing and communications, in an email to Newsday.
Liz Treston, 52, of <a href="/topics//Long_Beach,_NY">Long Beach</a>, a quadriplegic since a diving accident at age 19, lost her new adapted van when it "danced with the ocean." Fortunately, she was able to get back her old van -- it was still at the Bussani dealership, where it was being prepared for donation to a nonprofit. She'll drive it until a new van is ready.
Life wasn't easy for the retired speech and language pathologist after the storm, which forced her, her companion dog Finney, and her sister's family to evacuate their flooded house for their mother's home in <a href="/topics//Yonkers,_NY">Yonkers</a>.
"I hate to be a Lifetime movie," she said, comparing her predicament to TV melodrama, "but my body was pretty bruised and battered for the next few weeks. I didn't have any of my equipment that makes me independent, my power chair, the lifts to transfer from place to place. I was in a bed that gave me pressure ulcers. There was no bathroom access."
Her family has helped for 30 years, but "everyone is older and it's harder for them to lift." 
And, she said, it isn't easy to be always dependent. "I don't like asking, I don't want to have to say 'please' and 'thank you' 24 hours a day," she said.
Eventually, a friend who read of her plight on Facebook brought over her motorized chair in a truck, and she moved into an accessible hotel with FEMA funds. She's returning, with her equipment, to stay with her mother again until house repairs are complete.
Paratransit difficultiesA huge frustration, however, was trying, and failing, to get a ride on the paratransit system for the disabled during her stay in Yonkers. A disabled person who lost a van and needed a paratransit ride would still have to register, providing medical documentation of disability and awaiting approvals that could take several weeks.
"It's not an automatic 'My van is out, boom, come get me,' " said John Khzouz, director of marketing and communications for NICE Able-Ride in Nassau County, which has similar requirements to those in Westchester and elsewhere.
He said it is possible for registered disabled riders to arrange trips across county lines via connections to paratransit systems in abutting counties, and riders registered in one county can arrange for rides if they are visiting elsewhere.
For Treston, the struggle to recover from the storm is "like peeling off a Band-Aid a millimeter at a time." Being unable to even get a ride on public transportation when she needed it had a sting all its own. "I almost threw my phone against the wall in frustration," she said. "I wanted to put the phone on the floor and roll over it."

LIVANS16

Storm-ruined vans leave LI's disabled stuck

liVans crop 

Wednesday night's shows at the NYCB Theatre at Westbury were not just another gig for comedian <a href="/topics//Jerry_Seinfeld">Jerry Seinfeld</a>. He says they were "something special." 
 "Frankly, it was amazing," Seinfeld, 58, reflected Thursday. "You can never tell what creates an <a href="/topics//Atmosphere_(musician)">atmosphere</a>, but it felt like there was this great <a href="/topics//Atmosphere_(musician)">atmosphere</a> in the room. I grew up there, I still live there and I'm part of that community." 
 All funds from the two shows raised went directly to <a href="/topics//Long_Island,_NY">Long Island</a> victims of superstorm Sandy. "Doing a show was great, but being able to help where and when it was needed felt even better," he said. 
 Long <a href="/topics//New_York_Islanders">Islanders</a> easily identified with Seinfeld, who grew up in <a href="/topics//Massapequa,_NY">Massapequa</a>, greeting him with open <a href="/topics//ARMS_(band)">arms</a>. "People were very sweet and appreciative. There was a family feeling there," he stated. "Little old ladies would come up to get their picture taken and they'd act like I was their nephew. It was nice." 
 Working the stage in-the-round for over 50 minutes during two back-to-back shows proved that he hasn't lost his comedic edge. 
 "I'm still in love with it," he admitted "I'm just lucky that I found this thing that never stops fascinating me." 
 Because he enjoyed being back on home turf, Seinfeld said he is already making plans to return to <a href="/topics//Long_Island,_NY">Long Island</a>. 
 "We had such a good experience last night that we are thinking about how we could do this again," he said. "The <a href="/topics//Long_Island,_NY">Long Island</a> shows were electric, exceeding my expectations. There was a spark to them."

Entertainment

ETSEIN21

Jerry Seinfeld: Westbury shows were 'something special'

seinfeld-CROPPED

Nassau County and the City of Long Beach will receive $41 million in promised federal aid this week to help with superstorm Sandy cleanup efforts, Gov. Andrew M. <a href="/topics//Andrew_Cuomo">Cuomo</a> announced Sunday.
Long Beach will receive $24 million and Nassau County will receive $17.2 million to pay for the massive debris-removal effort, according to the latest figures provided by FEMA last night.
At a news conference inside Long Beach City Hall, Cuomo, joined by City Manager Jack Schnirman, Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano and State Director of Operations Howard Glaser, called the payments a "first step" and urged Congress to pass the state's request for $32 billion in additional disaster recovery funds. "Let's put the politics aside and do what's in the best interest of the people," Cuomo said, pressing Congress to vote before breaking for the holidays.
Mangano echoed the calls for swift action, saying the hard-hit county had a message for Congress: "Work together; this region is in need."
Schnirman said the $24 million in immediate funding will not only help with cleanup costs but also will "send the signal to <a href="/topics//Moody's">Moody's</a> on <a href="/topics//Wall_Street">Wall Street</a> that the city is viable and will maintain that access to capital and liquidity that we need to keep going."
The city has fought to keep its bond rating from being downgraded by <a href="/topics//Moody's">Moody's Investors Service</a> since being bumped from an A1 rating to Baa3 last December -- signaling to investors a move from a low-credit risk to a moderate one. In June, Moody's issued a statement that Long Beach was "no longer under review for downgrade" after city officials approved a "more conservative" $88 million 2012-13 budget.
Sen. <a href="/topics//Chuck_Schumer">Charles Schumer</a> (D-N.Y.), in a statement issued Sunday, said, "This federal cash was rushed to the community [Long Beach] to help deal with the financial burden, and it is just the start."
The <a href="/topics//Federal_Emergency_Management_Agency">Federal Emergency Management Agency</a> has to date made seven awards to <a href="/topics//New_York_(state)">New York</a> municipalities, totaling $291.7 million across the seven counties in the state worst affected by Sandy, according to FEMA.
FEMA spokesman Ed Conley said such grants go to reimbursing municipalities for lifesaving and life-sustaining costs incurred during the storm and for repair costs for public-owned facilities or infrastructure. The money is released first to the state, which then reimburses local and county government.
"This is actually pretty early on in the recovery phase . . ." Conley said.

LICUOM17

Long Beach, Nassau get $41M for Sandy cleanup

liSANDY -- cropped

The calls came in from all over. 
 There were downed trees in <a href="/topics//Manhasset,_NY">Manhasset</a>, lost power in <a href="/topics//Great_Neck,_NY">Great Neck</a> and a couple trapped in an ATM vestibule near <a href="/topics//Merrick,_NY">Merrick</a>. 
 On an average day, the 311 center in <a href="/topics//North_Hempstead,_NY">North Hempstead</a> gets fewer than 500 calls. But the day superstorm Sandy hit, operators received more than 3,000. 
 And not all were from North <a href="/topics//Hempstead,_NY">Hempstead</a>. 
 "We were taking calls from all over the region," said Dave Gottesman, who until last week ran TownStat, a program that tracks data for the town. "I spoke to people from the boroughs, from the South Shore, <a href="/topics//Hempstead,_NY">Hempstead</a>, <a href="/topics//Oyster_Bay,_NY">Oyster Bay</a>; that was important because we were, in that time of crisis, the only resource for a lot of people." 
 During the next two weeks, the center -- housed in locations in <a href="/topics//Manhasset,_NY">Manhasset</a> and <a href="/topics//Westbury,_NY">Westbury</a> and operating on generators -- received 37,000 calls. As a lifeline for <a href="/topics//Callers_(musician)">callers</a>, said Town Supervisor Jon <a href="/topics//Jon_Kaiman">Kaiman</a>, the center "really came into its own during the storm." 
 The <a href="/topics//Westbury,_NY">Westbury</a> site, at the recently birthed "Yes We Can" Community Center, isn't slated to open until January. But the Oct. 29 storm prompted an early test run. 
 Designed to help residents with modest concerns such as potholes, the center was a port in the storm for those fed up with the <a href="/topics//Long_Island_Power_Authority">Long Island Power Authority</a> and in the dark. Modeled after large ones in New York City and Baltimore, the operation was the first of its kind on <a href="/topics//Long_Island,_NY">Long Island</a> when it opened in 2005. 
 Suburban sprawl, officials said, can often leave residents feeling isolated. Few towns have an official 311 call center as sophisticated as the one in New York City, which averaged 169,000 calls each day during the two weeks after the storm and is always open 24 hours. 
 <a href="/topics//Brookhaven,_NY">Brookhaven</a>, with a similar hotline, fielded a third of the calls <a href="/topics//North_Hempstead,_NY">North Hempstead</a> did during those two weeks, but was not open 24 hours, though it extended weekend hours. 
 "It becomes a lifeline to a lot of people when they are just starved for information, or a live person to talk to," Kaiman said. 
 More than 35 staffers worked at both <a href="/topics//North_Hempstead,_NY">North Hempstead</a> centers, open 24 hours a day in the first 10 days after Sandy. Staffers clocked 15-hour shifts by emergency operators, and at times, deputy commissioners, council members and even Assemb. Michelle Schimel (D-<a href="/topics//Great_Neck,_NY">Great Neck</a>). 
 Vincent Malizia, call center director, said on any given day the town receives a "small percentage" of calls from outside localities, often the result of crossed telephone lines near towers on the border of Queens and North <a href="/topics//Hempstead,_NY">Hempstead</a>. 
 During the days after the storm, Thomas Harty, a former town official who helped start the original call center, said he was heartened to see the call center flourish under pressure. "I'm very proud of it."

TOCALL07

311 call center was lifeline when Sandy hit

liCALLhs CROP

Repair costs for public schools hit by superstorm Sandy could exceed $50 million in Nassau County, where flooding was especially severe in South Shore communities, and run into the millions of dollars in <a href="/topics//Suffolk_County,_NY">Suffolk</a> districts as well. 
 Tom Rogers, superintendent of Nassau BOCES, gave the dollar estimate for his region Wednesday as dozens of school districts in Nassau and <a href="/topics//Suffolk_County,_NY">Suffolk</a> counties were tallying damage expenses to apply for federal emergency aid. The filing deadline for assistance, set by the state, is Dec. 17. 
 Damage varied widely from one district to another, local school administrators said. Along much of Nassau's South Shore, school basements and first floors were flooded with as much as 5 feet of seawater. The surge knocked out electrical and heating systems, warped gym floors, and covered classroom and auditorium seating with muck. 
 In hard-hit <a href="/topics//Long_Beach,_NY">Long Beach</a>, school authorities reported that repairing schools slammed by tidal surges could cost as much as $20 million. The <a href="/topics//Jericho,_NY">Jericho</a> district's costs, on the other hand, were estimated at about $100,000, largely for removal of downed trees and repair or replacement of broken fences. 
 "Obviously, the degree of damage to schools differs greatly, and those that were closest to the South Shore experienced far more due to flooding," said Hank Grishman, <a href="/topics//Jericho,_NY">Jericho</a>'s schools chief and a former president of the <a href="/topics//New_York_(state)">New York</a> State Council of School Superintendents. 
 Storm damage to schools was much heavier in Nassau than in <a href="/topics//Suffolk_County,_NY">Suffolk</a>. Two schools in <a href="/topics//East_Rockaway,_NY">East Rockaway</a> that serve more than 900 students remain closed more than five weeks after Sandy. The district's Rhame Avenue Elementary School is expected to open later this month, but no opening date has been set for <a href="/topics//East_Rockaway,_NY">East Rockaway</a> Junior-Senior High School. In <a href="/topics//Long_Beach,_NY">Long Beach</a>, West Elementary School is not scheduled to reopen to until March at the earliest, and Blackheath School is slated for demolition, a plan that predated the storm. 
 Many local educators wonder how quickly they'll be reimbursed by federal and state authorities -- and for how much. 
 "The biggest issue will be cash flow," said <a href="/topics//David_Weiss">David Weiss</a>, <a href="/topics//Long_Beach,_NY">Long Beach</a> superintendent. "You don't want to be borrowing." 
 Some officials pointed to the experience of upstate and Hudson Valley districts where Tropical Storm Irene did most of an estimated $79 million damage to schools, according to the state Education Department. Some districts have only recently received reimbursement for damages caused by the August 2011 storm. 
 The individual districts' insurance should pay a good portion of repair costs. Typically, federal emergency aid picks up 75 percent of whatever remains, with the other 25 percent split between the state and local districts. In the wake of Irene, the state shouldered the entire 25 percent, but Sandy's costs are projected to run far higher. 
 John <a href="/topics//John_Mills">Mills</a>, a regional representative for the <a href="/topics//Federal_Emergency_Management_Agency">Federal Emergency Management Agency</a>, said Wednesday that funds should be allocated within the next few weeks for "emergency protective services" -- for example, costs of boarding up windows and stacking sandbags. 
 Processing of requests for more expensive repairs and renovations could take several weeks, Mills said. He could not say precisely when such requests would be approved. 
 "We understand that schools need help and that is going to be a top priority for us," he said. 
 The state Education Department recently sent out damage-survey forms, with instructions that school districts should return the forms by Dec. 17. The forms ask for descriptions and estimated costs of destruction to school buildings, grounds, vehicles and other equipment. 
 Rogers, of Nassau BOCES, predicted a majority of the county's 56 districts would file requests for reimbursement. In contrast, Gary Bixhorn, chief operating officer of Eastern <a href="/topics//Suffolk_County,_NY">Suffolk</a> BOCES, said filings from districts in his region may be relatively few because the area was less hard-hit than communities to the west. 
 The contrast in school-damage costs between Nassau and Suffolk was apparent in preliminary estimates issued Nov. 26 by Gov. <a href="/topics//Andrew_Cuomo">Andrew M. Cuomo</a>'s office that set the total price tag of storm recovery and prevention at nearly $42 billion. Those estimates, described as conservative, projected that Nassau's school repairs would cost $40 million and <a href="/topics//Suffolk_County,_NY">Suffolk</a>'s would be $2.7 million.

LIREPA06

Sandy school repairs could top $50M in Nassau

liSKULdlp crop

A state panel of business executives, union leaders and academics pledged Tuesday to identify building projects that will protect <a href="/topics//Long_Island,_NY">Long Island</a> from future natural disasters. 
 Meeting 36 days after superstorm Sandy ravaged parts of <a href="/topics//Nassau_County,_NY">Nassau</a> and <a href="/topics//Suffolk_County,_NY">Suffolk</a> counties, the <a href="/topics//Long_Island,_NY">Long Island</a> Regional Economic Development Council discussed improvements to electricity distribution, public housing, communications, sewage treatment and dunes for seaside communities. 
 "It's incumbent on Long Island to speak with one voice about what are the best ways to prevent this from happening again," council co-vice chairman Stuart Rabinowitz said, referring to Sandy's wrath on places such as <a href="/topics//Lindenhurst,_NY">Lindenhurst</a>, <a href="/topics//Babylon,_NY">Babylon</a> village, <a href="/topics//Long_Beach,_NY">Long Beach</a> and Riverhead. 
 "The regional council is nonpartisan and can look at the long run," said Rabinowitz, president of <a href="/topics//Hofstra_University">Hofstra University</a>. 
 Council members unanimously agreed it would serve as a clearinghouse for projects seeking money from <a href="/topics//New_York_(state)">New York</a> State. The council already plays the same role for economic development proposals; last year it secured $101.6 million for about 70 business expansions. 
 The local council, along with nine others across the state, was appointed by Gov. Andrew M. <a href="/topics//Andrew_Cuomo">Cuomo</a> to devise a five-year strategy to create jobs. Each council recommends developments to Cuomo for aid. 
 Kevin Law, co-vice chairman and president of the Long Island Association business group, said a plan was needed to rebuild sewage treatment plants and the electric grid so that they can better withstand another storm. 
 He and Rabinowitz directed the council's 50-member infrastructure working group to collaborate with others on recommendations for post-Sandy repairs. 
 One project, Smart Grid 3, that received $5 million in state funding last year, is tackling some of the issues raised by the Oct. 29 storm, according to Samuel Aronson, director of Brookhaven National Laboratory. 
 He said Smart Grid researchers, at the lab and at <a href="/topics//Stony_Brook_University">Stony Brook University</a>, are examining ways to "harden" electricity distribution and to make it easier for utility companies to prevent cascading blackouts.

Business

BZCOUN05

Post-Sandy strategy for LI regional panel

liSANDY

Eight <a href="/topics//Long_Island,_NY">Long Island</a> breweries came together Tuesday to participate in the creation of a special-edition beer as part of the relief effort after superstorm Sandy. 
 On a rainy morning, brewers from Barrier Brewing Co., Blind Bat Brewery, <a href="/topics//Great_South_Bay,_NY">Great South Bay</a> Brewery, <a href="/topics//Greenport,_NY">Greenport</a> Harbor Brewing, Long Ireland Beer Co., Port Jeff Brewing Co., and Spider Bite Brewing Co. trekked to <a href="/topics//Blue_Point,_NY">Blue Point</a> Brewing Co. in <a href="/topics//Patchogue,_NY">Patchogue</a> for the project. 
 Profits from sale of the final product, to be named "Surge Protector, Sandy Relief IPA," will be donated to <a href="/topics//Long_Island,_NY">Long Island</a> Cares and to microbrewery Barrier Brewing, said Curt Potter, a spokesman for <a href="/topics//Blue_Point,_NY">Blue Point</a>. 
 The recipe for the beer was a collaborative effort between the brewers. <a href="/topics//Blue_Point,_NY">Blue Point</a> hosted the event and offered its equipment for use. The malt barley that made up the base for the brew mix was a combination of eight different bags of grain -- one from each participating brewery -- symbolizing that there was " a little piece of each brewery being brewed," Potter said. 
 Barrier Brewing, located on New Street in <a href="/topics//Oceanside,_NY">Oceanside</a>, suffered nearly $100,000 in damages after Sandy washed about three feet of seawater into the brewery's facility. 
 Evan Klein, the co-founder of Barrier, expressed gratitude for the help. "It's hard enough to run a brewery -- for them to take a hit and miss out on potential revenue to do this . . . it was very unexpected and generous," he said. 
 The brewers started grinding the malt barley for brewing around 8:30 in the morning. As the day wore on, the crowd of brewers stood around Blue Point's production facility, drinking beer out of paper cups and chatting about brewing techniques. The brewing process lasted the entire day. The fermentation process for the beer will take about two weeks. 
 The IPA, or <a href="/topics//India">India</a> pale ale, will be available as a draft at local bars later this month, with a bottled version coming out early next year, Potter said. The collaboration will make 30 barrels of beer, or around 60 kegs.

BZBEER05

8 LI brewers to produce Sandy relief ale

bzBeer crop

Kings Park residents last week excoriated a proposed senior housing complex, saying it should be moved to the site of a former state psychiatric hospital. 
 Of 32 residents who spoke Thursday night at a packed public hearing before the Town of <a href="/topics//Smithtown,_NY">Smithtown</a> board, all but two opposed the St. Johnland Nursing Center's pitch to build the 199-unit Uplands at St. Johnland complex on a wooded, 50-acre parcel on Sunken Meadow Road. 
 Opponents said they feared the loss of wildlife and said excessive artificial light would destroy nighttime vistas. They also opposed St. Johnland's proposal to set aside a 5-acre parcel on Meadow Road for a leaching field in a planned expansion of a <a href="/topics//Suffolk_County,_NY">Suffolk</a> County sewage plant. 
 Some, such as Robert Trotta, of Kings Park, suggested moving the housing project to the nearby site of the former Kings Park Psychiatric Center, less than a quarter mile east. The hospital property is now <a href="/topics//Nissequogue,_NY">Nissequogue</a> River State Park and other state parkland. 
 "Save that woodlands," Trotta said, referring to the St. Johnland property. "Just move it 200 yards away." 
 State officials have said St. Johnland had no interest in making a deal to build on the state property, but a St. Johnland attorney, Vincent Trimarco of <a href="/topics//Smithtown,_NY">Smithtown</a>, said talks simply broke down years ago. "We tried to deal with the state of <a href="/topics//New_York_(state)">New York</a>, and it just didn't happen," Trimarco said. 
 The $103.6 million Uplands project would offer 175 apartments and town houses, 24 assisted-living units and skilled-nursing facilities. St. Johnland CEO Mary Jean Weber, in an interview last week, said only three <a href="/topics//Long_Island,_NY">Long Island</a> complexes -- in <a href="/topics//Greenport,_NY">Greenport</a>, <a href="/topics//Port_Jefferson,_NY">Port Jefferson</a> and <a href="/topics//Roslyn,_NY">Roslyn</a> -- offer a similar combination of independent and assisted-living homes. 
 Town Supervisor <a href="/topics//Patrick_Vecchio">Patrick Vecchio</a> questioned details of the proposal, noting units would cost $395,000 to $825,000. "To me, this seems to be all about maximizing profits," he said at the hearing. 
 <a href="/topics//Smithtown,_NY">Smithtown</a> resident Ernie Krauss defended Uplands, saying it would have little impact on the community. "There's no traffic" at similar facilities, he said. "That's a lot of baloney." 
 Engineers are to address questions raised at the hearing in a final environmental impact statement, which is expected to take months to complete. 
 Daniel Karpen, a Huntington naturalist and engineer, sang the Beatles' "Yesterday" as he called for the Uplands site to be added to a state map of freshwater wetlands. <a href="/topics//The_Move_(musician)">The move</a>, he said, would stop the project "dead cold." He then turned to the audience and bowed.

TOKING03

Kings Park residents bash Uplands project

toKing29 -- cropped

Under normal circumstances, <a href="http://www.cleanoceanaction.org/index.php?id=37">Clean Ocean Action</a>, a grassroots organization based in New Jersey and focused on water quality issues, finds itself a haven for volunteers. 
 So after superstorm Sandy, it was inundated with requests to help, said Tavia Danch, education coordinator for the organization. 
 She found that post-Sandy, people were often frustrated by the fact that they could not find a place to volunteer their time, a volunteer effort that matched their particular skill, or that after finding a volunteer opportunity, they found it poorly organized. 
 “At Clean Ocean Action we’re a grassroots organization and what we pride ourselves on is the fact that we are able to recruit volunteers and our effectiveness at doing that,” she said. “This is really grassroots in its essence, let’s give the power to the people to really help in the aftermath of the storm.” 
 To help, the organization called on volunteers from New York and New Jersey to coordinate their effort into one organized day of volunteering, called <a href="http://www.cleanoceanaction.org/index.php?id=37">“Waves of Action Day” on Dec. 8</a>. 
 To facilitate “Waves of Action,” Danch said her organization is using its website, <a href="http://www.cleanoceanaction.org/index.php?id=37">fortheshore.org, to register projects and volunteers.</a> 
 Any organization, municipality, homeowner or business in New York and New Jersey can register a recovery project, and interested volunteers can go on the website to find for the project that best suits their skills and interests. 
 One project registered on Long Island will take place in Hampton Bays at the Evelyn Alexander Wildlife Rescue Center. Twenty volunteers will tackle the trails that weave around the wooded acres the center sits on. 
 Ginnie Frati, executive director of the wildlife center, said some of the popular trails were left impassable after Sandy took down trees. 
 Frati said the volunteers will be a big help because her own staff -- which is caring for the many injured birds that have been brought to the center since the storm -- is unable to address the trails. 
 “Our staff has really been busy,” Frati said. “We just have enough staff to work on the animals.” 
 Most projects currently registered are in New Jersey and include beach cleanings, tree removal, a restaurant cleanup and a toy drive. 
 On Long Island, Danch said there is another project being organized for a Jones Beach cleanup that has yet to be finalized, and she said they are eager for others. 
 “We’re getting to the brink where we’re needing more projects to occupy all our volunteers,” she said.

Volunteers to clean up beaches, trails

Clean Ocean Action seeks volunteers for Sandy cleanup

liOCEA crop

As LIPA formulates a 2013 budget that is already several weeks late because of superstorm Sandy, the embattled authority also must deal with a looming storm bill of hundreds of millions of dollars while facing political pressure not to raise electric rates. 
 The <a href="/topics//Long_Island_Power_Authority">Long Island Power Authority</a>'s preliminary estimate for Sandy expenses is around $800 million, but a bill increase does not appear to be on the cards. "Clearly a rate increase would not be appropriate at this time, and it would not be supported by the administration," a Cuomo administration official said Thursday. 
 The <a href="/topics//Federal_Emergency_Management_Agency">Federal Emergency Management Agency</a> is working with a reimbursement rate of 75 percent for Sandy-related electric system costs, spokesman Ed Conley said Thursday. LIPA would be expected to cover the remaining 25 percent. The agency's portion could increase to 90 percent if total FEMA costs in the state reach a certain threshold, Conley said. 
 The current reimbursement rate would leave LIPA on the hook for around $200 million, which, if paid in the coming year, could translate into a 5 percent bill increase. 
 So not raising rates could challenge LIPA financial staff and the trustees' financial committee to find other ways to cut costs as storm bills become due in the months ahead. Observers say they expect LIPA to turn first to programs such as solar rebates or energy efficiency to pay its storm bills without raising rates. The 2012 budget for renewables and efficiency programs was $119 million. 
 But one LIPA trustee said he would resist any effort to trim the programs, and said a small rate increase would be preferable. "I would be very hesitant to see cuts in those programs because they are part of a long-term strategy that saves money," Neal Lewis said. 
 Assemb. Robert Sweeney (D-<a href="/topics//Lindenhurst,_NY">Lindenhurst</a>), whose district includes people who were among the hardest hit by Sandy, said, "We're at a time and a point where everybody has to get creative in terms of being able to pay the bills without putting the burden on people who, especially right now, are overburdened." 
 Spokeswoman Elizabeth Flagler said LIPA is "several weeks behind in preparing the budget due to Sandy," so details won't be released until after the board's finance and audit committee meets Dec. 6. A full trustees meeting is set for Dec. 13. 
 The local solar-power industry is bracing for cuts but hopes they won't be too deep. "Our big concern is if the [solar] program were impacted in a way that people would have to start to reduce the size of their companies, it would put people out of work and companies out of business," said Sail Van Nostrand, former chairman of the <a href="/topics//Long_Island,_NY">Long Island</a> Solar Energy Industries Association. 
 He suggested a better approach would be to "cobble together something that keeps the industry working," including a mix of program cuts, a small rate increase and perhaps borrowing to pay the storm bill. "The trick here is to maintain some sort of status quo that keeps the businesses open," he said. 
 One problem is that LIPA's budget has limited room to cut. 
 "There's not a lot of fat sitting in that budget," Van Nostrand said. "They've taken that out. What are they going to cut? They are going to cut bones."

POLIPA30

LIPA struggles with 2013 budget as it faces Sandy's costs

LILIPA

More than $285 million in cash assistance has been approved for residents in Nassau and Suffolk counties a month after superstorm Sandy hit, federal officials said Thursday. 
 Assistance awarded to Nassau and Suffolk residents is part of $703 million paid to 13 New York State counties, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. 
 The agency has approved $234.8 million for Nassau County residents and $51.1 million for Suffolk County families, FEMA officials said. 
 Finding “available housing” for victims whose homes were damaged by Sandy, which hit Long Island on Oct. 29, is the agency’s top priority, said Terry Winters, FEMA’s disaster response coordinator for Nassau and Suffolk counties. 
 “We just don’t have the rental resources or available space to build a temporary community,” Winters said. “Finding a solution to temporary housing has been a bit of a challenge.” 
 Winters said Thursday he couldn’t provide an estimate of how many homes on Long Island had been destroyed by Sandy. 
 So far, more than 236,000 New Yorkers have contacted FEMA or registered for assistance. 
 Individuals can register online for FEMA assistance at <a href="http://www.disasterassistance.gov">www.disasterassistance.gov</a> or call 800-621-3362. Multilingual telephone operators are available and those with a speech disability or hearing loss can use a TTY by calling 800-462-7585. 
 Toll-free telephone numbers operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

LIers get $285M in FEMA assistance

LIers get $285M in FEMA aid after Sandy

liSANDYdlp/kmd-- cropped

Superstorm Sandy cost the <a href="/topics//Long_Island,_NY">Long Island</a> economy up to $10 billion, according to experts. 
 That's nearly one month's worth of gross domestic product -- the sum of all goods and services produced in <a href="/topics//Nassau_County,_NY">Nassau</a> and <a href="/topics//Suffolk_County,_NY">Suffolk</a> counties -- which totaled $122.5 billion in 2010, the most recent available data from <a href="/topics//IHS_Inc.">IHS</a> <a href="/topics//Global_Insight">Global Insight</a>. The Englewood, Colo.-based economic forecaster does work for <a href="/topics//New_York_(state)">New York</a> State government and calculated Sandy's local toll for Newsday. 
 The Island's economic hit from the Oct. 29 storm was mirrored elsewhere in the <a href="/topics//New_York_(state)">New York</a> City region, most notably in lower Manhattan, Staten Island and <a href="/topics//New_Jersey">New Jersey</a>. 
 <a href="/topics//William_C_Dudley">William C. Dudley</a>, president of the <a href="/topics//Federal_Reserve_Bank_of_New_York">Federal Reserve Bank of New York</a>, said Thursday that economic activity in the region potentially shrank $3.8 billion each day that business was completely stopped. He declined to estimate how many days had been entirely lost to Sandy; several economists told Newsday the region lost at least two full days of commerce, and the storm's effects lingered long afterward. 
 <a href="/topics//William_C_Dudley">Dudley</a> pegged the New York City region's GDP at $1.4 trillion per year. "The damage and disruptions from the storm do appear more extensive and longer-lasting than first anticipated," he said in a speech at <a href="/topics//Pace_University">Pace University</a>'s Manhattan campus. 
 <a href="/topics//William_C_Dudley">Dudley</a>, along with <a href="/topics//IHS_Inc.">IHS</a> Global forecasters and local economists, predicted Sandy-ravaged communities such as <a href="/topics//Long_Beach,_NY">Long Beach</a>, <a href="/topics//Freeport,_NY">Freeport</a>, <a href="/topics//Babylon,_NY">Babylon</a> and <a href="/topics//Lindenhurst,_NY">Lindenhurst</a> would take longer to bounce back than the New York City region in general. 
 "While the storm had many severe effects . . . I do not expect the storm to derail the region's ongoing economic expansion," which has been slow but steady, Dudley said. 
 The economic impact of Sandy on <a href="/topics//Long_Island,_NY">Long Island</a> is diverse and widespread. Some of it might be offset by increased spending on construction and money from insurance companies and government. 
 Jobs disappeared when businesses closed for good. Wages and sales were lost because companies couldn't open and their customers couldn't get to them. Thousands of homes, cars and other possessions were destroyed. The <a href="/topics//New_York_Stock_Exchange">New York Stock Exchange</a> was closed for two consecutive days for weather-related reasons for the first time in 124 years. 
 Jim Diffley, chief regional economist at IHS Global, said while property damage was extensive, the bigger impact is probably the shutdown of commerce for days because of power outages. He said, "Some spending is lost completely, such as business trips, vacations and restaurant meals that will never be made up." 
 Gov. Andrew M. <a href="/topics//Andrew_Cuomo">Cuomo</a> on Monday asked the federal government for $8.4 billion in reconstruction aid for the Island as part of a $42 billion request. Cuomo said yesterday that he would jointly lobby Washington with <a href="/topics//New_Jersey">New Jersey</a> Gov. Chris Christie, who is asking for $37 billion in Sandy aid, and Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy, who wants $3.5 billion. 
 The struggling housing market in <a href="/topics//Nassau_County,_NY">Nassau</a> and <a href="/topics//Suffolk_County,_NY">Suffolk</a> counties may have a steeper road to recovery. Real estate agents lost sales because of the storm -- and they expect a further slowdown in home buying and selling in the coming months. 
 Still, Andy Yakubovsky, manager of Century 21 Prevete-Bastone Real Estate in Massapequa, predicted the slowdown would be limited to the hardest-hit communities. 
 For some owners of homes and businesses in these areas, the storm set them back years economically. 
 Andrea Shulman, owner of Pinup Clothing Boutique in <a href="/topics//Long_Beach,_NY">Long Beach</a>, doubted she would ever recoup her sales lost to Sandy. Thursday, she opened a temporary store in her home in The Walks, a Long Beach neighborhood. 
 Her dining room table was covered in designer sweaters, pullovers and tops; gloves hung on the coat rack and a mannequin stood in the corner. Jewelry cases sat on top of a piano. 
 Shulman, who had no flood insurance, said she's selling the merchandise that she salvaged from her 5-year-old shop on Park Avenue, plus a few new items. She is now using the store's Facebook page, Pinup Lbny, as her sole form of marketing. 
 Shulman needs to pay off $20,000 in credit card bills before she can even consider looking for a new storefront to rent. "I'm hoping to survive," the 57-year-old said. "But this [Sandy] has put me back a few steps." 
 Contractors and their employees may be among the biggest beneficiaries of Sandy because they have work after suffering a prolonged unemployment rate of 30 percent or more, said Pearl Kamer, chief economist at the Long Island Association business group. 
 However, local builders say they haven't seen a significant uptick in business so far. 
 "I haven't gotten the men and women to work that I believe I should have," said James Castellane, president of the Building and Construction Trades Council of Nassau-Suffolk.

LIECON30

Experts: Sandy takes $10 billion toll on LI economy

Port Jefferson Sandy

<a href="/topics//Nassau_County,_NY">Nassau</a> County officials said Monday they are seeking temporary foster homes for about 250 cats and dogs being housed at <a href="/topics//Long_Island,_NY">Long Island</a>'s largest emergency shelter after their owners were displaced by superstorm Sandy. 
 This week, the Office of Emergency Management, which oversees the <a href="/topics//Nassau_County,_NY">Nassau</a> County Pet Shelter in <a href="/topics//Garden_City,_NY">Garden City</a>, is reaching out to potential foster caregivers, said OEM community emergency response team director Michael Arcari. "If everything goes according to plan," he said, caregivers can start housing pets next Monday. 
 He anticipates the stays will last several months beyond the New Year and give owners time, "so they can be able to get their lives back in order." So far, Arcari said, about 50 pet owners have indicated they would allow their pets to leave the crowded shelter in a former Navy hangar that takes in animals daily. 
 The owners will be asked again this week if they still want placements, he added. 
 Besides planning foster care, the OEM is also helping displaced owners take advantage of a newly announced relief program, Sheltering Temporary Essential Power (STEP), that funds work on storm-damaged homes to make them habitable. 
 But in the meantime, the process of reunification has been slowed by no-pet restrictions at apartments Islandwide. So far, landlords have stuck to no-pet rules, shelter volunteers said, but the county and pet coalitions are pleading for compassion. 
 In a letter to landlord groups, the Society of Prevention of Cruelty to Animals urges them to "temporarily reconsider such restrictions in light of this unprecedented disaster." So far, there's been no response. 
 But Beverly Poppell, executive director of Pet Safe, an animal coalition that supports the OEM shelter and works with pet owners, said an attorney will reach out to landlords. 
 The OEM's decision to begin the foster care comes as weary volunteers were told in recent days that the shelter would remain open indefinitely. "My stomach sank a little bit," Poppell said. 
 Since the storm, caring for animals has been exhausting for about 30 unpaid workers Poppell manages. 
 "We're basically running a people shelter here and an animal shelter," said Gary Rogers, spokesman for the <a href="/topics//Nassau_County,_NY">Nassau</a> County SPCA, referring to the long hours volunteers put in. The county has said the shelter would remain "open as long as there is a need for one," but Rogers emphasized that family and neighbors also must step up. 
 When asked whether euthanasia were an option, Poppell replied, "No, no." She believes if the shelter closed, the pets would be moved to municipal ones or taken in by the North Shore Animal League. 
 Sue Hassett, director of the <a href="/topics//North_Hempstead,_NY">North Hempstead</a> shelter, said if the OEM shelter is shuttered, she also is willing to take pets. 
 <a href="/topics//Nassau_County,_NY">Nassau</a> County Emergency Pet Shelter: 
 Location: 241 Miller Ave., <a href="/topics//Garden_City,_NY">Garden City</a> Size: 250 Animals Those interested in temporarily adopting pets can call the shelter directly at 516-272-0017.

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Foster homes sought for pets displaced by Sandy

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In the aftermath of Sandy, helping hands have been prevalent in some of <a href="/topics//Long_Island,_NY">Long Island</a>'s hardest-hit communities -- often in the form of payloaders, dump trucks and personnel loaned by other municipalities. 
 Communities such as <a href="/topics//Bayville,_NY">Bayville</a>, <a href="/topics//East_Rockaway,_NY">East Rockaway</a>, <a href="/topics//Lindenhurst,_NY">Lindenhurst</a> and <a href="/topics//Long_Beach,_NY">Long Beach</a> have received equipment and crews from other governments, from the state to the counties to the town or village next door. 
 In <a href="/topics//Lindenhurst,_NY">Lindenhurst</a>, officials expressed gratitude to <a href="/topics//Patchogue,_NY">Patchogue</a>, which sent a dump truck, payloader and 10 workers. "They really gave our guys a hand when they were going at full tilt," said village clerk-treasurer Shawn Cullinane. 
 <a href="/topics//Lindenhurst,_NY">Lindenhurst</a> also received help from <a href="/topics//Brightwaters,_NY">Brightwaters</a>, where residents organized a donation drive and fundraiser in a village park. A <a href="/topics//Brightwaters,_NY">Brightwaters</a> public works crew member filled a flatbed truck and delivered the goods. 
 <a href="/topics//Babylon,_NY">Babylon</a> Town also pitched in, said Lindenhurst deputy mayor Kevin McCaffrey, providing Dumpsters and other equipment. Officials also let the village bring debris to the town's incinerator, he said. 
 In <a href="/topics//Long_Beach,_NY">Long Beach</a>, City Manager Jack Schnirman said assistance from other municipalities has helped expedite debris removal; 135,000 cubic yards had been removed by the end of last week. 
 Help from <a href="/topics//North_Hempstead,_NY">North Hempstead</a>, <a href="/topics//Glen_Cove,_NY">Glen Cove</a>, <a href="/topics//Hempstead,_NY">Hempstead</a> Village and Huntington has made cleanup more manageable, he said, adding that more help is expected soon from <a href="/topics//Lynbrook,_NY">Lynbrook</a> and <a href="/topics//Brookhaven,_NY">Brookhaven</a>. "This is a force multiplier that is allowing us to accomplish this task faster than a small municipality like us could on our own," he said. 
 A dozen garbage trucks were sent by Huntington, he said. <a href="/topics//North_Hempstead,_NY">North Hempstead</a> sent eighteen-wheelers, dump trucks and payloaders the weekend before <a href="/topics//Thanksgiving">Thanksgiving</a>, town Supervisor <a href="/topics//Jon_Kaiman">Jon Kaiman</a> said. Crews volunteered to work double shifts on both days, hauling debris from the city. He said the town will send crews again if asked. 
 That Sunday, <a href="/topics//Glen_Cove,_NY">Glen Cove</a> sent 18 trucks, including dump trucks, an excavator and a back hoe, and 31 public works employees to <a href="/topics//Long_Beach,_NY">Long Beach</a>, Mayor Ralph Suozzi said. "The consensus was we go big, or we don't go at all," he said. "If there's other people who need help, and we can help, we'll help." 
 <a href="/topics//Hempstead,_NY">Hempstead</a> Village planned to send eight garbage trucks to Long Beach yesterday, each with a three-worker sanitation crew, Mayor Wayne J. Hall Sr. said. 
 <a href="/topics//Hempstead,_NY">Hempstead</a> Town spokesman Michael Deery said the town provided a mobile command unit for Long Beach police after its headquarters was destroyed, and made available its conservation and waterways building in Point Lookout for showers and to facilitate communications for police. Long Beach also used Lido West Town Park to store impounded vehicles. 
 Hempstead Town also provided sanitation services to <a href="/topics//East_Rockaway,_NY">East Rockaway</a> and loaned a military vehicle to the <a href="/topics//East_Rockaway,_NY">East Rockaway</a> Fire Department for evacuations, Deery said. 
 The Town of Oyster Bay offered equipment and crews in multiple locations. Supervisor John <a href="/topics//John_Venditto">Venditto</a> said town resources were sent as far west as Queens and to villages on the north and south shores. Hard-hit <a href="/topics//Bayville,_NY">Bayville</a> confirmed it had hosted town public works trucks. "Before, during and after the storm, I don't recall a higher intermunicipal level of cooperation," Venditto said. "I think everybody was on the same page: If you had it, you gave it." 
 With Aisha Al-Muslim, Jennifer Barrios, Mackenzie Issler, Emily Ngo and Patrick Whittle

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Municipalities help one another after Sandy

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LIDEAD25.WEB

Superstorm Sandy: Remembering the 13 who died on LI

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When <a href="/topics//New_Jersey">New Jersey</a> gasoline terminals were flooded by superstorm Sandy, <a href="/topics//Long_Island,_NY">Long Island</a> drivers were in trouble. When the crucial Island terminals in <a href="/topics//Inwood,_NY">Inwood</a> also flooded, drivers were sunk. 
 The powerful tidal surge from Sandy, and the widespread power outages from the storm, crippled the complicated and vulnerable infrastructure that brings gasoline to <a href="/topics//Long_Island,_NY">Long Island</a>. At least nine of 20 critically important fuel terminals at the Port of <a href="/topics//New_York_(state)">New York</a>'s Linden, <a href="/topics//Bayonne">Bayonne</a> and <a href="/topics//Newark,_NJ">Newark</a> shorelines and two more in Brooklyn were inoperable. The Island's largest distribution point, in <a href="/topics//Inwood,_NY">Inwood</a>, also lost much of its capacity. 
 The result: a major interruption in the flow of gasoline to <a href="/topics//Long_Island,_NY">Long Island</a>, whose 2.6 million vehicles burn about 23 million gallons of it in an average week. Three days after the storm, lines began appearing at stations in <a href="/topics//Nassau_County,_NY">Nassau</a> and <a href="/topics//Suffolk_County,_NY">Suffolk</a>, reminiscent of those during the 1970s oil embargo. Hundreds of thousands of people living in cold houses with no power were forced to wait, often for hours, to fill their cars and gas cans. 
 Efforts to alleviate the Island's dependence on those terminals would be expensive and encounter major environmental and aesthetic obstacles, experts say. 
 "If money was no object you could just build terminals all around <a href="/topics//Long_Island,_NY">Long Island</a>," said Andy Lipow, president of the consulting firm Lipow Oil Associates Llc in Houston. "They would have to be large enough to accept imports from Europe. But I just can't imagine that on the South Shore or the North Shore you're going to be willing to build tanks with a couple of million barrels of storage." 
 Local gas retailers and industry experts say less costly and less controversial measures can be taken to avoid a repeat of the post-Sandy gasoline debacle, including establishment of a gasoline reserve and getting power restored faster to gas stations that lose it. 
 &nbsp; 
 How LI gets its gas 
 Gasoline comes to <a href="/topics//Long_Island,_NY">Long Island</a> from U.S. refineries and 36 countries, including the <a href="/topics//United_Kingdom">United Kingdom</a>, the Netherlands, <a href="/topics//India">India</a>, Spain, Nigeria, <a href="/topics//Norway">Norway</a> and Russia. The vast majority of these imports are delivered, via pipelines and tankers, to the <a href="/topics//New_Jersey">New Jersey</a> portion of the <a href="/topics//New_York_Harbor">New York Harbor</a>. 
 From there, fuel goes by pipeline, barge or truck to three main terminals at <a href="/topics//Inwood,_NY">Inwood</a>, located east of John F. Kennedy International Airport; by barge to a terminal in <a href="/topics//Glenwood_Landing,_NY">Glenwood Landing</a>, in northern <a href="/topics//Nassau_County,_NY">Nassau</a>; and by barge to <a href="/topics//Port_Jefferson,_NY">Port Jefferson</a> Harbor, where it's piped inland to an East Setauket storage facility and then piped to a terminal in <a href="/topics//Holtsville,_NY">Holtsville</a>, owned by Northville Industries. 
 From "racks," overhead pipes that dispense fuel into delivery trucks, at <a href="/topics//Inwood,_NY">Inwood</a>, <a href="/topics//Holtsville,_NY">Holtsville</a> and <a href="/topics//Glenwood_Landing,_NY">Glenwood Landing</a>, the gasoline is distributed to individual gas stations. 
 The system has a major bottleneck: <a href="/topics//New_York_Harbor">New York Harbor</a>. With the harbor closed for three days after Sandy, and with terminals and pipeline pump stations in <a href="/topics//New_Jersey">New Jersey</a> flooded, powerless or both, the supply of gas reaching the Island slowed to a trickle. Delivery restrictions in <a href="/topics//Port_Jefferson,_NY">Port Jefferson</a> Harbor, to address concerns about empty barges bobbing about in the storm, also briefly hampered supplies reaching <a href="/topics//Holtsville,_NY">Holtsville</a>. 
 In addition, the Colonial Pipeline, which carries fuel from the U.S. Gulf region to the Northeast, shut down for four days because of power outages; and the Buckeye Pipeline, from Linden, N.J. to Kennedy and LaGuardia airports, Astoria and the <a href="/topics//Inwood,_NY">Inwood</a> terminals, operated at reduced capacity on generator power for several days after the storm. 
 Two of <a href="/topics//Inwood,_NY">Inwood</a>'s terminals reopened quickly. But the largest, owned by Motiva Enterprises, remained closed, putting added pressure on <a href="/topics//Long_Island,_NY">Long Island</a>'s other terminals, where trucks waited in long lines, sometimes for hours, to fill up. 
 Even if they could get deliveries, many of the Island's more than 1,000 gasoline stations had no power to pump fuel into cars and trucks. Those that had gas and could pump it were quickly swamped by motorists worried about running dry -- until demand was reduced by odd-even rationing instituted 11 days after the storm. 
 Kevin Beyer, president of the Long Island Gasoline Retailers Association, suggested that one way to avoid a repeat is for utilities such as LIPA to make gas stations a higher priority for power restoration. "We should come after the nursing homes and hospitals and traffic lights," he said. 
 &nbsp; 
 Need for pre-emptive plan 
 State and county legislation has been proposed to require stations to have generators, but gasoline retailers are balking at the cost -- $18,000 to $20,000 with installation for a unit that can run a local gas station, said Ralph Bombardiere, executive director of the Gasoline and Automotive Service Dealers Association and the umbrella <a href="/topics//New_York_(state)">New York</a> State Association of Service Stations and Repair Shops. 
 Some in the industry say elected officials waited much too long to impose odd-even rationing, which ended last weekend. <a href="/topics//New_Jersey">New Jersey</a> Gov. Chris Christie put rationing into effect on Nov. 3, six days after the storm. 
 "The most critical thing would have been odd-even on day one," said Brian Fioretti, vice president of Island Transportation, whose trucks deliver gasoline. "The first thing government needs to do is control the people." 
 Fioretti said his 120 trucks were unable to keep up with demand run wild. 
 Some in the industry also are critical of the Coast Guard for not opening the Port of <a href="/topics//New_York_(state)">New York</a> until three days after Sandy. 
 Beyer and Bombardiere say the delay points to something that's needed: a single governmental entity to monitor the fuel supply and having the power to avert or at least alleviate shortages -- perhaps by redirecting supply or providing extra trucks where they're needed. The state energy office, created during the 1970s gas shortages, once filled that role, Bombardiere said. But, in the 1990s, it was folded into the state Energy Research Development Authority, which itself has been allowed to shrink through attrition, Bombardiere said. 
 Northville Industries chairman Gene Bernstein says officials need to take pre-emptive steps when a major storm is forecast, such as providing temporary waivers of clean air rules to clear the way for gasoline from other regions to be sold here. 
 "If you can't get product from <a href="/topics//New_York_Harbor">New York Harbor</a>, you should be able to get it from somewhere else," he said. 
 Lipow suggests that before a storm, generators for terminals and service stations be situated in places that are not flood-prone; and storing additional gasoline supplies in tanker trucks parked in flood-safe areas or in gasoline stations that have generators. 
 Solutions for avoiding the <a href="/topics//New_York_Harbor">New York Harbor</a> bottleneck are more elusive -- and expensive. 
 The administration of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo wants to explore the idea of new pipelines from New England, built with federal funds. 
 Lipow notes, though, that New England has no refineries; like <a href="/topics//New_York_(state)">New York</a>, it gets its fuel from abroad, via tanker into Boston, Providence or New Haven, or via barges -- from <a href="/topics//New_York_Harbor">New York Harbor</a>. 
 Another hurdle: getting approvals to build pipelines through heavily populated areas. "You're dealing with such incredible rights-of-way issues that it isn't a palatable solution," said Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst at the Oil Price Information Service in Wall, N.J. 
 The Cuomo administration also is considering proposing a gasoline reserve for emergencies, similar to the million-barrel Northeast heating oil reserve.

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Cars

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After Sandy, a look at gas distribution

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George and Lori <a href="/topics//George_King">King</a> feel a little more optimistic, now that the first fixes to their flood-ravaged home are on the way. 
 The <a href="/topics//Lindenhurst,_NY">Lindenhurst</a> couple have been living without heat or hot water in their South Ninth Street split-level home since superstorm Sandy struck Oct. 29, drowning the downstairs in saltwater. 
 While the power and gas are back on, their furnace and hot water tank were destroyed. The couple "farmed out" an adult daughter and Lori <a href="/topics//George_King">King</a>'s mother to friends and relatives, and stayed in their home, stripping flood-soaked walls down to the studs. 
 They've been showering and doing laundry elsewhere, doing their best to stay warm with a pair of small heaters they shift from room to room. 
 Friday morning, they got a sorely needed lift when an assessment crew -- a carpenter, plumber and electrician -- arrived as part of a new assistance program. 
 Sheltering Temporary Essential Power, or STEP, provides no-cost, quick-fix repairs that allow homeowners and renters to remain safely in their homes -- or return to them -- during the often-lengthy rebuilding process. 
 "They're going to send another crew. There's no exact date, but I'm optimistic by the end of next week we'll have a 20-gallon hot water tank, three to four baseboard heaters and a tarp on the roof," said <a href="/topics//George_King">George King</a>, 64, a retired electrician. 
 "It's a big boost. It feels like a little light at the end of the tunnel," he said. "We'll be able to at least get through part of winter that way." 
 The Kings' home was one of more than 160 assessed in <a href="/topics//Suffolk_County,_NY">Suffolk</a> County Friday as part the STEP program -- a joint effort of <a href="/topics//Nassau_County,_NY">Nassau</a>, <a href="/topics//Suffolk_County,_NY">Suffolk</a> and the <a href="/topics//Federal_Emergency_Management_Agency">Federal Emergency Management Agency</a>. The cost to the counties will be largely reimbursed by FEMA and the state. 
 Suffolk <a href="/topics//Labor_Department">Labor Department</a> Commissioner Sammy Chu said STEP teams kicked off the program by visiting about 1,000 residences Friday. "Eligible homeowners who have reached out have either been assessed or will be assessed by the end of this weekend," he said. 
 FEMA community relations workers canvassed storm-impacted areas with fliers earlier in the week. Suffolk has set up a 211 phone number for residents to sign up for the program. 
 In <a href="/topics//Nassau_County,_NY">Nassau</a>, almost 4,000 homes had been assessed late Friday, ending the program's first week there, Deputy County Executive Rob Walker said. Of those, about 1,200 were deemed eligible for STEP, with the first repairs expected to start this weekend. 
 Severely damaged homes are ineligible. 
 "Some of the damage is so significant, there's no quick fix," Walker said. 
 About 125 homeowners called Nassau's toll-free number -- 888-684-4267 -- Friday to request an assessment. 
 <a href="/topics//Long_Island,_NY">Long Island</a> now accounts for more than 40 percent of FEMA aid approved for <a href="/topics//New_York_(state)">New York</a> State. As of Friday, more than $217 million in housing assistance grants had been approved for 30,700 homeowners and renters in Nassau; $44 million for 6,600 households in Suffolk, the agency said. 
 The FEMA aid figure for all of <a href="/topics//New_York_(state)">New York</a> had risen to nearly $633 million Friday, with another $245 million approved in <a href="/topics//New_Jersey">New Jersey</a>. 
 Queens households will receive $165 million in housing aid, with $129 million going to Brooklyn and $66 million to Staten Island. 
 &nbsp; 
<h3> INSURANCE HELP</h3> 
 &nbsp; 
 The New York Department of Financial Services will have representatives at four <a href="/topics//Long_Island,_NY">Long Island</a> locations, offering Sandy-related help to homeowners, renters and business owners. 
 <a href="/topics//Nassau_County,_NY">NASSAU</a> 
 Saturday -- 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., <a href="/topics//Freeport,_NY">Freeport</a> Recreation Center, 130 E. <a href="/topics//Merrick,_NY">Merrick</a> Rd. 
 Sunday -- noon to 5 p.m., <a href="/topics//Bellmore,_NY">Bellmore</a> Public Library, 2288 Bedford Ave. 
 Tuesday -- 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., <a href="/topics//Levittown,_NY">Levittown</a> Mews Shopping Center, 3335 <a href="/topics//Hempstead,_NY">Hempstead</a> Turnpike 
 <a href="/topics//Suffolk_County,_NY">SUFFOLK</a> 
 Monday -- 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., <a href="/topics//Islip,_NY">Islip</a> Town Hall Annex, 401 Main St. 
 The department's storm hotline (800)339-1759 operates 24 hours a day. Insurance information is also available online at dfs.ny.gov.

LISTEP24

Assessment crews visit Sandy-ravaged homes

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Mikey and Eve Lennox kept kissing and hugging Thursday like long-lost relatives, she kneeling on the floor of a <a href="/topics//Garden_City,_NY">Garden City</a> shelter and he on his hind legs licking her face. 
 "I miss him. He's the closest thing to me," said Lennox, surviving in a camper, away from her cockapoo companion and her flooded <a href="/topics//Massapequa,_NY">Massapequa</a> home. 
 People and pets divided by superstorm Sandy upheld their definitions of family on <a href="/topics//Thanksgiving">Thanksgiving</a> Day at Nassau County's pet shelter in Mitchel Field, once an unused gymnasium but now an emergency home to almost 300 pets. For a few moments, they relieved each other's stress, walked together, gave licks or massages and cooed in different languages. 
 It's a haven for people whose relatives or emergency hosts can't house their pets. At the shelter, animal lovers and groups -- from the Pet Safe Coalition to the North Shore Animal League -- minister to the homeless creatures. 
 Denise Lobascio, who had left a turkey in the oven at her brother's <a href="/topics//Merrick,_NY">Merrick</a> home, took her four children to the shelter to see cat Oreo and pit bull Casey. "It's <a href="/topics//Thanksgiving">Thanksgiving</a> Day," she said. "It's a day for family. 
 Sitting in a stairway, son Vincent Gross, 16, cradled Casey on his lap, knowing visiting time was almost over. "She's thinking 'Please take me,' " he said. 
 They adopted Casey just weeks before Sandy. With their <a href="/topics//East_Rockaway,_NY">East Rockaway</a> home wrecked, Casey has to stay put. 
 "Next time we come back," Lobascio told Casey, "we're going to take you with us." 
 Thursday's partings were bittersweet. Humans cried, knowing their pets were safe on a day when they should have been underfoot, begging for turkey scraps. Some dogs turned to stare at their humans practically the entire way back to their cages. Cats stretched out paws as if to say "stay." 
 Rolf Siljander, 76, cried plenty after breaking a promise to his rescued dogs, a corgi mix and <a href="/topics//Jack_Russell">Jack Russell</a> terrier mix. In welcoming them to <a href="/topics//Massapequa,_NY">Massapequa</a>, he had told them they'd never see a shelter again. 
 "I can't take this," he said after he and daughter Dana Siljander, 41, walked the two dogs. 
 "It's like having to put your kids in the shelter," said Dana Siljander, whose father is staying in her <a href="/topics//Massapequa,_NY">Massapequa</a> home. 
 At the shelter, the gym floor was lined with rows of cages of dogs, who barked when it was walk time. 
 Upstairs was the quieter cat room, where Jodi Terrana and son Alfonso, 3, peeked into cage after cage, looking for their 8-year-old cat Cujo. 
 "He was lost the night of the storm," said Terrana, whose family raced out of South <a href="/topics//Bellmore,_NY">Bellmore</a> as Sandy approached. Cujo ran out in the confusion. 
 "It's heart-wrenching when you realize that a bit of something that's breathing is missing," Terrana said. "He's way too smart to be d-e-a-d," she said, spelling the word in front of her son. 
 Out in the fields and roads around the shelter, Stephen Angel of <a href="/topics//Long_Beach,_NY">Long Beach</a> didn't seem to want to leave pit bull Blue. He walked her for two hours around Mitchel Field. 
 Blue always slept by Angel's wife, Dolores, acting like a warm pillow for her bad back. 
 But three weeks ago, the dog rose above his canine status in the family, Angel said. Blue, who could race after sea gulls until he was a speck in the distance, stayed by Dolores after she tripped outside. He licked her tears, Angel recounted. 
 "It gives me a feeling of security knowing that this is the type of dog who's totally committed to his family," he said. "When I knew that, I fell head over heels in love with the dog."

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Families reunite with pets at Nassau shelter

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For thousands of Long Islanders displaced by superstorm Sandy, home became a spare room or extra couch in the house of a family member.
While some of the storm's victims checked into shelters or hotels or left the area, many more relied on their families coming together to get through these difficult times.
Thursday, Long Islanders who once looked forward to celebrating <a href="/topics//Thanksgiving">Thanksgiving</a> with extended family now find themselves living with them.
Many of these arrangements have no expiration date. Thousands of homes are uninhabitable. Many need extensive reconstruction before owners can move back in. The <a href="/topics//Federal_Emergency_Management_Agency">Federal Emergency Management Agency</a> already has given grants for housing aid to people in more than 30,000 homes in <a href="/topics//Nassau_County,_NY">Nassau</a> County and more than 500 in <a href="/topics//Suffolk_County,_NY">Suffolk</a>.
Newsday visited a number of these new family alignments during the last two weeks. In one, children and grandchildren help two octogenarian great-grandparents start anew. A mother sees her grown son as husband and father to children of his own. A man learns to live under his in-laws' roof. Two grandparents found themselves living in a granddaughter's princess bedroom, and liking the decor. Here are their stories:
"Out of their element," but grateful
After Richard and Jane Grempel's little house on St. Marks Avenue in <a href="/topics//Freeport,_NY">Freeport</a> blew up, firefighters found him floating in the basement and her in the living room.
That was shortly after 5 a.m. the morning after Sandy struck. It was a gas leak, family members said, that started when a line to the gas-powered dryer in the basement snapped in the storm surge; what sparked it isn't clear.
Richard was on his back, stunned and bruised but breathing. Jane's sternum was broken.
Both were hospitalized and are recovering. But it was clear, almost from the start, that the house was too damaged for them to return. After more than 50 years there, the Grempels, both 82, are homeless.
For now they are living in <a href="/topics//Babylon,_NY">Babylon</a> Village with one of their two sons, Rick, his wife Debbie, two of the younger couple's daughters, Mallory and Lindsey, and a golden lab, Chloe. They sleep in the room once occupied by Brayden, their 2-year-old great-grandson, the child of Rick and Debbie's third daughter, Brittney.
"We are so grateful we're still here to be with them," Jane Grempel said earlier this week. She was looking forward to Thanksgiving at her other son Steve's house in <a href="/topics//Nesconset,_NY">Nesconset</a>; after all the math was done, it was determined that 16 Grempels and their significant others would be there. "It will be the first time in a long time that the whole family's been together," she said.
The storm has made life harder for everyone in this family, in ways big and small. Rick, 55, an aircraft mechanic and Babylon firefighter, has been going out on more calls than usual since Sandy struck; Debbie, 53, a secretary, has been cooking for a full house, adjusting their health-conscious menu for her in-laws, who are accustomed to white bread and red meat.
Richard and Jane, who'd always been vigorous and independent, seemed lost when they first arrived, Debbie said, "out of their element."
Richard, a retired Freeport Village electrical worker and honorary chief of the Freeport Fire Department who volunteered there for most of his life, used to walk to the station house most days to clean equipment and talk with other firefighters. He can't do that anymore. Nor can Jane tend the house she ran for a half-century.
They are unused to relying on others, even family. "We try not to be too dependent on them," Richard said, "but they're helping us so much."
The younger Grempels have been looking for an apartment for Richard and Jane, with little success. The insurance money hasn't come through and there don't seem to be many apartments available nearby. They're on a few waiting lists and have turned down a few places that were available but "filthy," Debbie said.
With everything that's happened and all that's yet to be done, Rick said, Thanksgiving will be a respite, but a short one.
"We're going to celebrate," he said. "Then we're going to move on."
In havoc, lessons learned
When the cold and wet in Thomas and Carole Maguire's <a href="/topics//Lindenhurst,_NY">Lindenhurst</a> house grew unbearable a few days after Sandy, Carole's son from a previous marriage, Randy Martin, 44, asked them to stay at the <a href="/topics//Levittown,_NY">Levittown</a> home he shares with his wife Jacqueline, their three children, seven rabbits and two dogs.
The Maguires have been sleeping on a daybed off the main bedroom. It's not big enough to comfortably sleep two people, but they've worked out a schedule: Thomas, 56, a truck driver who works nights, sleeps from 4 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. Then Carole, 64, an administrator at Dominican Village retirement community in <a href="/topics//Amityville,_NY">Amityville</a>, wakes him and goes to sleep herself.
For a woman who enjoyed reading and writing poetry at home in solitude, life in a bustling household with kids ranging in age from 11 to 19 has been a shock.
"When you're raising children and they get all grown up, you get used to life on your own," Carole said. "They're helping with everything, but this is their environment; this is not my environment. I like quiet. They are not."
Has any good come out of this?
Martin, an engineer, said he has spent quality time with his stepfather ripping wallboard out of the Lindenhurst house. "Things like this make relationships tighter, that's for sure," he said.
Carole said she has enjoyed helping her grandchildren with homework -- 11-year-old Sarah's project on the pros and cons of taking pets to school sticks out. And she gets to see the son who began living on his own at 19 navigating adulthood.
"I see him day-to-day as a father, as a husband, and I'm very proud of what I see," Carole said. "My son is a grown man making all these grown-up decisions."
But when she looks at him sitting tall at the dining room table, she asks herself: "What happened to my baby?"
'Tense' life with the in-laws
Keith Casey, his wife, Jennifer, their 9-year-old daughter Chloe, and their dog Carly have been living with Jennifer's parents in <a href="/topics//Holbrook,_NY">Holbrook</a> since Sandy left their <a href="/topics//Long_Beach,_NY">Long Beach</a> home uninhabitable.
Keith, 53, a construction worker on disability after doctors found a tumor on his spine, has developed new respect for his in-laws.
"They make dinner every night for us," he said. "They go out of their way to help us. They do anything they can."
But life since the storm hasn't been easy. Actually, Keith said, "It's been hell."
Every day he drives Chloe to Lindell Elementary School in Long Beach, where she is in fourth grade. It takes about an hour-and-a-half each way and in between he goes to their old house. It stinks of sewage and he figures it won't be ready for them to move back for a long time.
At night, in Holbrook, "You feel like you have to ask if you can do this, do that," he said. "Before you take a shower, you've got to ask if anyone wants to use the bathroom."
The two couples never spent more than a few straight days together before Sandy -- trips to Disney World and the Caribbean.
It's been a learning experience. "At times it gets very tense," Keith said, "and other times you just laugh."
'Living again -- almost'
Larry and Maryann Lapolla had been spending their days at their <a href="/topics//Massapequa,_NY">Massapequa</a> house waiting for building inspectors and electricians and insurance adjusters.
But at night they were going to a lovelier place, a land of castles and princesses and a quietly winding river that never floods its banks.
They had been bunking at daughter Gina Silverman's house in <a href="/topics//Merrick,_NY">Merrick</a>, where a mural covers one wall of 6-year-old granddaughter Dylan's room.
"You're looking at another castle from yours across the river," said Larry, 63, a recently laid-off pharmacist. "It's a spectacular view."
They still shower in Merrick but now have resumed sleeping in their powerless home. For Larry, time spent coloring or playing with Dylan and her 4-year-old brother Cole was a respite from the stress of recovery.
"We used to speak all the time over the phone, but this is different," he said. "It keeps life real. You can almost forget your problems at your house. You can get into living again, almost."
He and Maryann always host Thanksgiving; today the family will split between their two daughters' smaller homes.

LIFAMI22.WEB

Displaced Long Islanders find post-Sandy comfort with family

lifamixx crop 

Following the lead of municipal and town governments Islandwide, the Village of Westbury has announced it will waive some fees for homeowners beginning repair and restoration jobs in the aftermath of superstorm Sandy. 
 The village said that while its building department might ordinarily charge residents to start these projects, after the recent storm and a subsequent nor’easter, that practice was not “appropriate.” 
 Mayor Peter Cavallaro said the waiver would encompass building permit fees for “storm-related work,” such as the installation of generators. 
 The village’s own review process for approving the repairs would be expedited, Cavallaro said. 
 “We don’t want people being delayed by us,” the mayor said. 
 Homeowners would still be required to schedule an inspection and file a permit.

Westbury to waive fees on post-Sandy repairs

lfdamiano18

With more families in crisis and donations down, <a href="/topics//Long_Island,_NY">Long Island</a> food pantries and relief volunteers are going into overdrive to provide Thanksgiving meals, especially for residents struggling in the aftermath of superstorm Sandy. 
 "Now our agencies are reporting that they have not just their regular amount of people that are coming for food support, but the numbers are increasing dramatically," said Randi Shubin Dresner, president and CEO of Island Harvest, the nonprofit organization and food bank that collects and distributes food to 570 local soup kitchens and food pantries. 
 To meet that need, hundreds of volunteers from groups big and small in <a href="/topics//Nassau_County,_NY">Nassau</a> and <a href="/topics//Suffolk_County,_NY">Suffolk</a> counties have responded with food drives, donation collections and free community meals. 
 The owner of a <a href="/topics//Rockville_Centre,_NY">Rockville Centre</a> auto-body shop purchased more than $100,000 in food to be given away. Cheerleaders in <a href="/topics//South_Huntington,_NY">South Huntington</a> made baskets for distribution to those in need. Restaurants and catering halls in some of the hardest-hit communities, such as <a href="/topics//Lindenhurst,_NY">Lindenhurst</a>, <a href="/topics//Massapequa,_NY">Massapequa</a> and <a href="/topics//Long_Beach,_NY">Long Beach</a>, are offering free Thanksgiving meals and expect thousands to be served. 
 Storm intensifies efforts 
 Drives to provide holiday meals occur each year before Thanksgiving. This year, though, organizers said the effort intensified. Some food pantries suffered damage during the storm or had to restock hurriedly because of spoilage caused by power outages. 
 The <a href="/topics//Smithtown,_NY">Smithtown</a> Emergency Food Pantry, made up of seven churches, lost about $200 worth of frozen juice and frozen vegetables when the power went out, director Pat Westlake said. Luckily, the staff salvaged a large supply of chicken because "someone took it into their home and used some of their generator power to run the freezer," she said. 
 Officials with The INN, a <a href="/topics//Hempstead,_NY">Hempstead</a>-based nonprofit organization that has 16 soup kitchens in 22 locations across the Island, reported that many of their soup kitchens lost power and had to throw out many items. 
 The INN is struggling to have enough for its usual donation efforts, let alone the extra needed for Thanksgiving, spokeswoman Cynthia Sucich said. 
 "The people that are normally the donors are now the people that are in need," she said. 
 Island Harvest is continuing its "Turkey and Trimmings" collection campaign for people who usually are in need of food to celebrate the holiday season in November and December. Each year, the nonprofit distributes 10,000 to 15,000 turkeys during the season, Dresner said. 
 "This year we're concerned, because those people still need holiday food, but we're in emergency relief mode," she said. "If we don't do well this year in receiving turkeys, that means potentially 10,000 to 15,000 families won't have holiday food." 
 Paule Pachter, executive director of <a href="/topics//Long_Island,_NY">Long Island</a> Cares, said the organization has seen a slight uptick in need. 
 "Right now, we at <a href="/topics//Long_Island,_NY">Long Island</a> Cares have ample food in the warehouse, so that nobody should go hungry," Pachter said. 
 Community groups help 
 Community groups and local businesses have stepped in to help, too. 
 In a drive that <a href="/topics//Walt_Whitman">Walt Whitman</a> High School cheerleaders helped organize, 25 cheerleader squads from across the Island gathered Wednesday at the high school to pack and distribute baskets of food. The effort is an annual one, but this year household items were added to baskets to be given directly to those affected by the storm, said Lisa Spatafora-Lessa, varsity cheer coach. 
 Robert Jesberger, the owner of Mid-Island Collision in <a href="/topics//Rockville_Centre,_NY">Rockville Centre</a>, has purchased at least $150,000 worth of food himself to be packed by volunteers and sent to storm-ravaged areas. 
 "We have drives throughout the year, probably on a daily basis, and the big ones are the holidays," Jesberger said. "Thanksgiving is a big one, which has become humongous because of the Sandy situation." 
 This is the sixth year that Manor East, a <a href="/topics//Massapequa,_NY">Massapequa</a> catering hall, has held a free Thanksgiving dinner for families in need. 
 Owner Richard Bivona said the dinner typically serves 1,500 to 2,500 people. But because of Sandy, the group plans to feed about 4,500 people. 
 "It's been very, very, very busy," he said. "The phone lines have been going crazy." 
 The <a href="/topics//Long_Beach,_NY">Long Beach</a> location of Swingbelly's BBQ restaurant was severely damaged in the storm. That has not stopped owner Sean Sullivan, who also has a <a href="/topics//Lynbrook,_NY">Lynbrook</a> location, from putting together a free holiday meal for at least 2,000 people at the <a href="/topics//Long_Beach,_NY">Long Beach</a> recreation center's ice arena. "So many people have lost everything that they have," Sullivan said. "And to see the look on somebody's face when you provide them with a hot meal -- that is what I know how to do." 
 Knights to host dinner 
 In hard-hit <a href="/topics//Lindenhurst,_NY">Lindenhurst</a>, where the storm surge swallowed homes and submerged streets, Our Lady of Perpetual Help <a href="/topics//Knights_of_Columbus">Knights of Columbus</a> Council No. 794 will host a dinner at their hall. 
 "We are in very close proximity to the destruction of the South Shore, and there are a lot of people, including some of our members, who have been wiped out completely," council member Ron Higgins said. "We feel if we can provide a peaceful dinner on Thanksgiving, and it would take their problems off their shoulders for an hour or two, we are going to shoot for it."

LITHAN18

Huge need for Thanksgiving food donations

liTHAN18 crop

Unemployed workers have an opportunity to gain temporary Sandy-related employment thanks to a grant awarded to the state and Suffolk County departments of labor. 
 The grant is provided by the U.S. Department of Labor to hire temporary workers to assist in recovery from damage caused by Sandy. 
 Workers might be eligible if their employment was lost temporarily or permanently because of the storm, or if they are unemployed or dislocated. 
 Duties might include debris removal, roadway clearing, buildings and grounds cleanup, and other projects as required. 
 The hourly rate is $14.89 for a 35-hour workweek. Employment can last up to 12 weeks. 
 To apply, call 631-853-6600, or visit the One-Stop Employment Center in Hauppauge at the Suffolk County Department of Labor, 725 Veterans Memorial Hwy. Bring two forms of identification.

Temporary jobs for Sandy-related work

Temporary workers needed for Sandy-related jobs

hlOCEANS13--cropped

At least 11 <a href="/topics//Long_Island,_NY">Long Island</a> public school districts socked by superstorm Sandy have canceled midwinter vacations or other breaks to compensate for lost class time, and dozens more cancellations could be imminent. 
 Widespread revocations of school vacations would have a major academic and economic impact across the Island, where more than 450,000 students lost five to 10 days of class on average from effects of Sandy and a subsequent nor'<a href="/topics//Easter">easter</a>. 
 So far, the <a href="/topics//Cold_Spring_Harbor,_NY">Cold Spring Harbor</a>, Harborfields, <a href="/topics//Locust_Valley,_NY">Locust Valley</a>, Middle Country and <a href="/topics//South_Huntington,_NY">South Huntington</a> districts have called off all or most of the weeklong February vacation known as midwinter break. Huntington's school board has scheduled a meeting Monday night to consider the same action. <a href="/topics//Hewlett,_NY">Hewlett</a>-<a href="/topics//Woodmere,_NY">Woodmere</a> and <a href="/topics//Rockville_Centre,_NY">Rockville Centre</a> boards will consider the issue Tuesday. 
 Six other districts -- <a href="/topics//Jericho,_NY">Jericho</a>, <a href="/topics//Massapequa,_NY">Massapequa</a>, <a href="/topics//Mineola,_NY">Mineola</a>, <a href="/topics//Center_Moriches,_NY">Center Moriches</a>, Connetquot and <a href="/topics//Copiague,_NY">Copiague</a> -- have canceled other days off, such as superintendents' conference days or "snow days." 
 &nbsp; 
 Many districts act 
 Overall, Newsday found that at least 40 districts out of 124 on the Island either already canceled some breaks or plan to take up the issue at school board meetings later this month or early next month. Newsday's estimate was based on a Friday survey of districts, coupled with interviews with regional school leaders. 
 Many school officials said canceled vacations could be restored if the state grants waivers from its required 180-day school calendar. Those officials added that they have not received any clear signal from <a href="/topics//Albany,_NY">Albany</a> that such waivers will be granted, and that they need to quickly advise parents, students and teachers of any upcoming changes in school calendars. 
 Also in school administrators' minds is the potential for bad winter weather ahead that may require more closings. 
 Some districts in upstate river valleys, after flooding last year from Tropical Storm Irene, obtained waivers of up to 10 days. But half of that exempted time was not approved by state lawmakers until June -- more than nine months after Irene struck. 
 "It's a critical issue, because we're coming up on February," said Michael Mensch, chief operating officer for the regional Western <a href="/topics//Suffolk_County,_NY">Suffolk</a> BOCES school agency. "People make plans for trips and vacations, and there's an economic issue if people don't hit the ski slopes." 
 Mensch added that about a dozen districts in his region are discussing possible cancellations of midwinter break, in addition to three districts that already have acted. Another dozen districts in eastern <a href="/topics//Suffolk_County,_NY">Suffolk</a> are weighing similar action, according to Gary Bixhorn, chief operating officer of the BOCES covering that region. 
 Canceling school vacations is a sensitive issue, educators acknowledged. Typically, such decisions divide parents who are worried about losing deposits on vacation trips from other parents anxious to provide their children with enough classtime to pass upcoming exams or heighten their test scores. 
 "While many parents are upset with having to give up the break, a majority of the ones I spoke with were still willing to give the days up to get instructional time," said Laura Carey, president of <a href="/topics//South_Huntington,_NY">South Huntington</a>'s PTA council. "Nine days out is a lot of time." 
 Carey, who has one daughter each in fourth grade and fifth grade, supports her school board's unanimous decision Wednesday to call off four days of midwinter break. 
 Like many parents, Carey said she believes that canceling these days will prove less controversial than, say, tinkering with another weeklong break in March that is tied to <a href="/topics//Easter">Easter</a> and <a href="/topics//Passover">Passover</a>. The board also canceled two other days off scheduled for April 1 and May 24. 
 &nbsp; 
 Exemptions sought 
 Under law, state education commissioners can waive up to five days of school for "extraordinary circumstances" including storm damage. State lawmakers and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo approved another five days for upstate schools hit by Irene, but that was a one-time arrangement. 
 The state's education commissioner, John B. King Jr., has not yet said whether he will grant waivers. King's aides have said repeatedly that, in any case, state law requires districts to exhaust vacation time before getting any exemptions. 
 State Sen. John Flanagan (R-East Northport), chairman of the Senate's Education Committee, announced earlier this month that he would file a bill allowing extra waivers beyond the five days already permitted by law. 
 Several school administrators said Friday that Flanagan recently told them any such bill could not be taken up until the legislature goes back into regular session after Jan. 1. The senator did not respond to Newsday's request for comment. 
 One upstate district that managed to obtain a 10-day waiver for 2011-12 is centered in the Catskills resort town of Windham. The district's lone, 422-student school was badly damaged when 8 feet of floodwaters poured over the banks of a nearby river, leaving the gym and playground covered with mud and debris. 
 With its waiver, the Windham-Ashland-Jewett district shortened its academic calendar to 170 days. It also preserved vacations. To do that, the district had to certify to the state that holding classes during vacation periods would impede school repairs and pose a potential hazard. In addition, many teachers worked two or three hours after regular classes -- and also for two days after the end of the regular school year -- to make up for time lost. 
 John Wiktorko, the district superintendent, said that <a href="/topics//Albany,_NY">Albany</a> officials made it clear that they took classtime requirements seriously. 
 "It wasn't just a carte blanche that you can keep your kids out of school," Wiktorko said. 
 With Michael R. Ebert 
 and Joie Tyrrell 
 &nbsp; 
<h3> DISTRICTS TAKING ACTION</h3> 
 &nbsp; 
 The districts listed indicated their plans Thursday or Friday in a Newsday survey, in interviews, or through public relations representatives. About 15 more districts were identified, but not named, by regional BOCES officials. 
 Districts that have canceled vacations, superintendent's conference days or "snow days" 
 <a href="/topics//Center_Moriches,_NY">Center Moriches</a> 
 <a href="/topics//Cold_Spring_Harbor,_NY">Cold Spring Harbor</a> 
 Connetquot 
 <a href="/topics//Copiague,_NY">Copiague</a> 
 Harborfields 
 <a href="/topics//Jericho,_NY">Jericho</a> 
 <a href="/topics//Locust_Valley,_NY">Locust Valley</a> 
 <a href="/topics//Massapequa,_NY">Massapequa</a> 
 Middle Country 
 <a href="/topics//Mineola,_NY">Mineola</a> 
 <a href="/topics//South_Huntington,_NY">South Huntington</a> 
 Districts planning to consider cancellations later 
 Bay Shore 
 Fishers Island 
 Garden City 
 Half Hollow Hills 
 <a href="/topics//Hewlett,_NY">Hewlett</a>-<a href="/topics//Woodmere,_NY">Woodmere</a> 
 Huntington 
 Malverne 
 Montauk 
 New Hyde Park-Garden City Park 
 Oyster Bay 
 Plainview-Old Bethpage 
 Remsenburg-Speonk 
 <a href="/topics//Rockville_Centre,_NY">Rockville Centre</a> 
 Roosevelt 
 Sachem 
 Valley Stream 24 
 SOURCES: Newsday survey, Syntax, Zimmerman-Edelson

Education

LISKUL18

Some school breaks cut to recoup lost days

When Michael Marrone drove to the beach to take a look at oncoming superstorm Sandy, he realized his Copiague Harbor residence was in for a hit. 
 Sure enough, he and his wife, Ileana, returned the next day after staying with friends to find their home filled with 2½ feet of water -- a surge that soaked furniture and appliances, drenched the walls, saturated clothing and left a thick layer of mud on their lawn. 
 What they didn't expect was the emotional punch that came with discovering how many personal treasures had been destroyed. Things like Michael's stamp and coin collection or, for his wife, the 40 pairs of shoes in her closet. They have yet to open a waterlogged box filled with family and vacation photos, but they know what they'll find. 
 "Those memories are gone," says Michael, 66, a client services manager for a communications firm. 
 This is a scene being played out everywhere in the storm's aftermath. The hard truth is that most of the contents in households like this will have to be discarded. But there is hope. 
 Here are some tips on how to salvage what you can -- if not from this storm, then ones in the future. Plus, some advice about how to get over your losses. 
 Protect yourself 
 The first tip is to wear rubber or latex gloves and a protective mask, especially if dealing with mold that can cause illness. 
 Photos 
 "Photographs are part of our lives and ourselves," says James Reilly, director of the Image Permanence Institute at <a href="/topics//Rochester_Institute_of_Technology">Rochester Institute of Technology</a>. "People can't afford to lose them." 
 That's why you should always keep duplicates or negatives in a watertight container or stored at another location, Reilly says. Digital pictures, of course, can be preserved through an online service. 
 Otherwise, the key to saving wet photos is to move fast. The longer photos remain wet, the more likely they are to disintegrate or be lost to mold. Most photos can be retained after being in water for a few days, Reilly says, but ink jet prints are seldom retrievable if left wet more than 24 hours. 
 Here's what to do: Take the photos out of their album or any protective plastic sleeves, immerse them in cold, clean water and carefully wipe off any dirt with a damp cotton ball or soft cloth. Rinse with clean water, preferably distilled or purified. Place the photos between non-textured paper towels and replace them when they get wet. 
 An alternative is to air dry prints by hanging them on a clothesline, Reilly says. You can also lay them image side up on screened material to air out both sides. A fan can speed things along, but don't aim it directly at the photos. Once dry, most prints can be flattened by placing them under a weight. 
 If you can't deal with photos within two days, put them in plastic bags and store them in the freezer to work on later. Whatever you do, Reilly says, don't let them stay wet too long and get moldy. 
 Furnishings, furniture and rugs 
 The microbial biodiversity of the sea makes it a great place for fish but not furniture. 
 "Anything porous covered by seawater is basically contaminated," says Rose Ann Martin,&nbsp; who along with her husband, Brian, owns the Advanced Restoration Corp. in <a href="/topics//West_Babylon,_NY">West Babylon</a>, which helps people recover from fire loss, water damage, vandalism or other disasters. 
 This means that for sanitary and health reasons, pretty much all upholstered furniture and rugs along with mattresses and box springs in a flooded home will have to be abandoned, she says. Coffee tables or furniture made with wood can be cleaned but can expand and crack when drying, which means those items also may have to be thrown out. 
 "If you could have driven down my street in <a href="/topics//West_Islip,_NY">West Islip</a> last week, you would have seen the contents of every house out on the curb," Martin says. 
 Homeowners also should be careful to make sure their home is dry enough to move back into, Martin says. His company uses a mathematical equation to make sure enough fans and dehumidifiers have been spread around to dry a house out properly. Afterward, workers use a meter to make sure there is a safe moisture level in the building materials, Martin says. 
 Metal lawn furniture may be rinsed off and saved. A washing machine also can come in handy. 
 "Whatever you have left, if you can wash it with soap in a washing machine," Martin says, "it will probably be OK." 
 Computers, laptops and cellphones 
 Generally, people who have electronic gear submerged in water can kiss it goodbye, says Adam Aletkin, co-owner of <a href="/topics//Long_Island,_NY">Long Island</a> Computer Repairs.Com in <a href="/topics//Uniondale,_NY">Uniondale</a>. 
 The problem is that water creates high resistance points in electronics as well as corrosion, which causes more current than necessary to be drawn into a circuit, he says. That's why if you turn on a waterlogged electric motor, it typically runs, smokes, sputters and eventually fails, he says. 
 "It's like trying to squeeze three cars down a one-lane road all right next to each other." 
 Usually, a computer expert will take out the hard drive from a wet desktop or laptop and go over it carefully with a hot-air dryer or compressed air and then test it with an outside, external source, he says. If that doesn't work, data from the hard drive can still be retrieved, although by much more expensive means, Aletkin says. His company only charges customers if the retrieval is successful, he says. 
 The method he recommends for drying out a waterlogged cellphone is easy. Toss it into a bag of uncooked white rice for 48 hours, and cross your fingers. 
 "A lot of people have luck with that method," Aletkin says. 
 DVDs, CDs and tapes 
 The verdict is mixed for those worried about their DVD, CD and tape collections. Saltwater quickly degrades cassette tapes. Even if you open and clean them, chances are they have been destroyed. But unless DVDs and CDs have been submerged for days, they usually can be used again, says Anthony Cimaglia, a manager at Networks by Design Inc., a Long Island data retrieval firm. 
 First, wash off any debris, but don't rub it off because dirt and sand can scratch the surface, he says. Next, gently wipe it with isopropyl alcohol and dry with a clean microfiber cloth. You can also apply the kind of spray cleaner used for glasses and sunglasses. Disc cleaning solutions and repair kits are available at most music and electronics stores. But never use window cleaner, since it contains chemicals that can affect stored data and degrade the disc. Also, don't use too much pressure while wiping things down because data is stored on the physical top coating of DVDs and CDs, usually where the label is. 
 "A lot of people don't know that when they're pressing really hard on the top, they're killing data," says Cimaglia. 
 One trick: If you've cleaned the disc and want to burn a copy on your computer, lick the clear plastic bottom -- the part that goes down in a computer -- in a circular motion with your tongue. Saliva will temporarily fill in the scratches. 
 "It's kind of a backdoor fix," Cimaglia says. 
 Books and documents 
 Jane Long, a preservation program officer with the <a href="/topics//National_Archives_and_Records_Administration">National Archives and Records Administration</a> in Washington, D.C., offers this advice for people gazing nervously at their pile of soaked books and documents: Calm down. 
 "If you're facing a roomful of boxes filled with papers or books, take a deep breath and figure out what to tackle first," she says. "You may not be able to save everything, so start with what's most important to you or your family." 
 Practice gentle triage, she says. Determine what items are the most badly damaged and start with those. If there is dirt or sand on the book, hold it tight to keep additional water from penetrating and rinse it off with clean, cold water. 
 If a book is really wet, lay it down and place paper towels inside about every 25 to 50 pages. Change them when they are saturated. If only slightly wet, stand the book on its end with the pages fanned open, once again placing papers towels among the pages. 
 Start a fan circulating the air, but not directly pointed at the book, and run a dehumidifier if you have one. Valuable art books with glossy pages are tricky, so consult an expert for that one. 
 Restoration advice 
 She recommended checking the Heritage Preservation website (heritagepreservation.org), which has a video for coping with water damage. 
 The American Institute for Conservation (conservation-us.org) can direct readers to other resources and provides a guide for selecting a conservator to handle more valuable objects. 
 National Archives and Records Administration also has a website with advice (archives.gov/preservation/records-emergency/public.html). 
 Long's suggestions for handling waterlogged documents are basically the same as with books. Select the most important ones first and place them in a small stack interspersed with paper towels. If a document is folded, dry it that way rather than risk opening and tearing it. The same goes for stuck-together papers. Both should come apart after they dry, Long says. Once the item is thoroughly dried, you can flatten pages by placing them under a weight. 
 Never use an oven, iron or blow dryer since they may also destroy the book or document. 
 "You need to approach this gently," she says. 
 Freezing books or documents until you can get to them later is a better option than letting them deteriorate. Wrap them in wax paper and place them loosely, spine down, in something like a ventilated box. And don't give up hope. "They might be wrinkled or stained, but they can be saved," Long says. 
 Stamp and coin collections 
 Sandy destroyed things everywhere -- even in places like Michael Marrone's safe, where he found his soaked collection of stamps and coins. 
 "I'd been saving them for 40 years, and now they're gone," he says. "That's depressing." 
 "Water is the worst thing followed by fire," says Dr. Leonard Cohen, a nonpracticing dentist and president of Marlen Stamp &amp; Coins, Ltd., in Great Neck. 
 Common American stamps can be dried and used for postage, but their value as collector's items is gone, he says. Rarer stamps, both from the United States and worldwide, may be restored professionally, although their collector value could be diminished. 
 Don't try to salvage damaged stamps without a professional opinion, he says. Get ruined collections appraised for insurance purposes. 
 Rare coins can be salvaged and restored, but it might be costly. Silver and gold coins are always worth their intrinsic metal value. 
 He understands the discouragement. A friend in Massapequa had his lifetime coin and silverware collection ruined by Sandy and put it up for sale for whatever he could get. "He said he didn't want to look at another coin or piece of silver," <a href="/topics//Leonard_Cohen">Cohen</a> says. 
 Don't get over it too soon 
 Probably the most common advice after a disaster like this is to deal with it and move on. After all, nobody -- in most cases -- was hurt, right? 
 Wrong, says Kathleen Dwyer-Blair, a licensed clinical social worker as well as director and owner of&nbsp; Nassau Guidance and Counseling, a psychotherapy practice with offices throughout Nassau and Suffolk counties. 
 "This prolongs the grieving process," she says. "People deserve the time to grieve." 
 After all, she says, a household isn't just material goods -- it's a collection of memories and objects with personal history. 
 "People have been traumatized, and they need to go through the process -- denial, shock, anger, grief and depression before they reach the final stage of acceptance," she says. "It's no different from when someone close to you dies or when you get a divorce or lose a limb." 
 Don't suppress your feelings, she says. Cry as long as you want, get angry or even throw a tantrum. A loss of a home, or most of one's possessions, can even conjure up past traumas, leading to things like panic attacks or nightmares. 
 Realize it may take months or years to adjust. Share your feelings with a friend or relative who isn't going to rush you into a quick recovery. And consider professional counseling. 
 "If you allow the grieving process to happen naturally,'' says Dwyer-Blair, "a person will get to the place where they need to be."

Things to Do

LSMAIN16.WEB

Post-Sandy, what to toss, what to save

lsmain16.web  corpp11.15.12

Whether it’s selling a cup of hot cocoa topped off with whip cream or collecting thousands of pounds of food, children of all ages are learning what it takes to help their neighbors recover from a national disaster like superstorm Sandy. 
 Ten-year-old Kate Dahlman and her friend Emily Callahan, 11, sold hot chocolate last weekend in Greenlawn to help Sandy victims. 
 “It was really cold out that day, so we couldn’t sell lemonade,” Kate said. “We wanted to sell hot chocolate to warm people up.” 
 Together the girls raised a total of $155.50 and plan to personally deliver the money to the Red Cross in Huntington. 
 “Kate said I’m going to try for $20,” said her mother Heidi Dahlman, 57, of Greenlawn. “They brought out signs and sold cups of hot cocoa for 25 cents. People were scraping the bottom of their bags to buy a cup. They were so amazed with the generosity of people and it all started with a simple idea of how can we help.” 
 The Patchogue-Medford High School Robotics Team 329 collected 1,300 pounds of food and $160 to donate to Island Harvest, a Long Island-based food bank. 
 “It felt good when they finally told us the number of families we would be feeding,” said team member Justin Ferrari, 16. “It made us want to do more and donate more to help families.” 
 East Islip Middle School students joined the effort by using their sewing skills to make care packages dubbed “Bags of Love” that they filled with toiletries. 
 “We collected thousands of toiletries,” said Dani Franzese, 29, one of the teachers in the department. “The kids made washcloth drawstring bags using hand sewing and machine sewing techniques we taught them.” 
 The toiletries are still being delivered to areas like Babylon and Lindenhurst, Island Harvest comfort stations and the Red Cross. 
 On Nov. 5, the first day the North Shore School District reopened, food donations flooded into the district’s five schools. So far more than 6,000 pounds has been collected, with more to still be weighed and brought to Island Harvest. 
 “I would estimate that it’s somewhere around 10,000 pounds,” said Ed Melnick, 57, superintendent of the North Shore School District. “In addition, we collected pet supplies and pet food, cleaning supplies and toys.” 
 Melnick said student were eager to take part in the effort and collected food in their neighborhoods, advertised the collection efforts and raised money for other schools, like East Rockaway High School. 
 “The response of the kids and the families underlies the very caring responsive community this school is in,” Melnick said. “It is a wonderful learning opportunity for these kids, to understand that there are people out there less fortunate than them that need help.”

Kids pitch in to help Sandy victims

Kids pitch in to help superstorm Sandy victims across Long Island

hlBAGS15/lt

COMFORT STATIONS 
 <a href="/topics//Nassau_County,_NY">NASSAU</a> COUNTY 
 * The American Red Cross has food distribution centers open from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. and from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. at the Cedar Creek Park in Seaford, Grant Park in Hewlett and Nickerson Beach Park in Lido Beach. 
 * <a href="/topics//Nassau_County,_NY">Nassau</a> County is offering free hot shower facilities at Cantiague Park in Hicksville, the <a href="/topics//Nassau_County,_NY">Nassau</a> County Aquatic Center in Eisenhower Park and the Mitchel Athletic Complex in <a href="/topics//Uniondale,_NY">Uniondale</a>. They will be open from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. daily until further notice. 
 * <a href="/topics//Nassau_County,_NY">Nassau</a> County has opened several warming centers. Check ahead to make sure a center has power. They are at the Bellmore Library, East Meadow American Legion Hall, Franklin Square Senior Center, <a href="/topics//Freeport,_NY">Freeport</a> Memorial Library, <a href="/topics//Freeport,_NY">Freeport</a> Salvation Army Center, Great Neck Senior Center, <a href="/topics//Hempstead,_NY">Hempstead</a> Senior Center, Herricks Senior Center, Inwood Senior Center, Our Lady of Lourdes School and the Senior Center in Massapequa Park, <a href="/topics//Merrick,_NY">Merrick</a> Library, <a href="/topics//Merrick,_NY">Merrick</a> Golf Course clubhouse, North <a href="/topics//Merrick,_NY">Merrick</a> Senior Center, Oyster Bay Senior Center, Port Washington Senior Center, <a href="/topics//Rockville_Centre,_NY">Rockville Centre</a> American Legion and Hispanic Brotherhood Senior Center, North Shore Synagogue in Syosset, <a href="/topics//Uniondale,_NY">Uniondale</a>/<a href="/topics//Hempstead,_NY">Hempstead</a> Senior Center, <a href="/topics//Uniondale,_NY">Uniondale</a>/<a href="/topics//Merrick,_NY">Merrick</a> Senior Center, <a href="/topics//Wantagh,_NY">Wantagh</a> Senior Center, Temple B’nai Torah in <a href="/topics//Wantagh,_NY">Wantagh</a>, Echo Park Pool in West <a href="/topics//Hempstead,_NY">Hempstead</a>, and <a href="/topics//Westbury,_NY">Westbury</a> Senior Center. 
 * The LIRR has turned its <a href="/topics//Long_Beach,_NY">Long Beach</a> Station waiting room into a comfort station. In addition to heat, water and restrooms, the room is equipped with power strips for use in charging cellphones and other electronic devices. Open daily from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m. 
 <a href="/topics//Suffolk_County,_NY">SUFFOLK</a> COUNTY 
 * The American Red Cross meal distribution center at the <a href="/topics//Mastic,_NY">Mastic</a> Beach Nutrition Center is open from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. The other centers have closed. 
 * The Town of Riverhead has a warming station at its senior center in Aquebogue. 
 * Southampton Town has centers in Bridgehampton, Hampton Bays and Flanders. 
 * Town of <a href="/topics//Babylon,_NY">Babylon</a> warming centers are open at the Farmingdale Knights of Columbus, <a href="/topics//Babylon,_NY">Babylon</a> Town Hall in <a href="/topics//Lindenhurst,_NY">Lindenhurst</a>, <a href="/topics//Babylon,_NY">Babylon</a> Town Annex in North <a href="/topics//Babylon,_NY">Babylon</a>, <a href="/topics//Lindenhurst,_NY">Lindenhurst</a> Public Library, Copiague Library, St. Joseph's Parish in <a href="/topics//Babylon,_NY">Babylon</a> and West <a href="/topics//Babylon,_NY">Babylon</a> Public Library. 
 DONATIONS 
 * The New York Islanders are holding an online auction to benefit those affected by Hurricane Sandy. Local sports teams, organizations and individuals provided items, including suites for events at <a href="/topics//Nassau_County,_NY">Nassau</a> Coliseum and Barclays Center, autographed memorabilia and one-of-a-kind experiences like meeting country music star Carrie Underwood. To view the auction and bid, visit newyorkislanders.com/sandy. 
 * <a href="/topics//Long_Beach,_NY">Long Beach</a> is no longer accepting donations of clothing, household items and other supplies, but financial donations can be made at longbeachny.org or sent to City of <a href="/topics//Long_Beach,_NY">Long Beach</a> Relief, 1 West Chester St., <a href="/topics//Long_Beach,_NY">Long Beach</a>, N.Y. 11561. 
 * Mid Island Collision is seeking hundreds of volunteers for its annual Fill-the-Bag event to create 10,000 meals for the needy in a 26-hour period. The event starts at noon on Nov. 20 and goes until 2 p.m. on Nov. 21 at the company’s office in <a href="/topics//Rockville_Centre,_NY">Rockville Centre</a>. For more information or to volunteer, email volunteerheremic@gmail.com 
 * Vision <a href="/topics//Long_Island,_NY">Long Island</a> is seeking donations and volunteers for cleanup crews in heavily damaged communities such as <a href="/topics//Long_Beach,_NY">Long Beach</a>, <a href="/topics//Mastic,_NY">Mastic</a> Beach, <a href="/topics//Lindenhurst,_NY">Lindenhurst</a>, <a href="/topics//Freeport,_NY">Freeport</a> and Island Park. Needed donations include industrial bags, rakes, shovels, gloves, masks and heavy boots. For more information, email info@visionlongisland.org or call 631-804-9128. 
 * Big Brothers Big Sisters of <a href="/topics//Long_Island,_NY">Long Island</a> is seeking monetary donations to help restore its Islandia building that partially collapsed during Sandy. To make a $5 donation, text BIG to 80100 or contact the organization at 516-731-7880. 
 * The <a href="/topics//Nassau_County,_NY">Nassau</a>-<a href="/topics//Suffolk_County,_NY">Suffolk</a> Hospital Council and other associations have established the Hurricane Sandy Health Care Employee Relief Fund to help employees of hospitals and other health care organizations. To donate or for more information, visit the website. 
 * <a href="/topics//Nassau_County,_NY">Nassau</a> County is accepting donations at the Theodore Roosevelt Executive and Legislative Building in Mineola; Eisenhower Park in East Meadow and <a href="/topics//Wantagh,_NY">Wantagh</a> Park and the county's Office of Emergency Management in <a href="/topics//Bethpage_State_Park,_NY">Bethpage</a>. 
 * Island Harvest in Mineola is accepting donations by texting the words HUNGER RELIEF to 266266 to help victims of the super storm. 
 * For information about area restaurants accepting or making donations, go to the Feed Me blog at newsday.com/feedme. 
 * For information about benefit events, shows and concerts, go to newsday.com/events. 
 * The Roman Catholic Diocese of <a href="/topics//Rockville_Centre,_NY">Rockville Centre</a> is accepting donations at any parish. The diocese also is accepting money donations, which will be distributed to parish-based and other Catholic social service agencies. 
 * Adelphi University in Garden City is accepting clothing, toiletries and food for shelters in need in the New York City and <a href="/topics//Long_Island,_NY">Long Island</a> areas. 
 * <a href="/topics//Long_Island,_NY">Long Island</a> Cares is asking for donations of cleaning supplies. For more information, call 631-582-FOOD or contact the agency via Facebook at facebook.com/licares. 
 * <a href="/topics//Long_Island,_NY">Long Island</a> Food Not Bombs seeks volunteers and donations of food, clothing, gasoline and communications devices. For more information, email longislandfoodnotbombs@gmail.com. 
 * B'nai B'rith International opened a disaster relief fund for Sandy. To donate or for more information go to bbi.convio.net. 
 * The Town of <a href="/topics//Hempstead,_NY">Hempstead</a> has collection bins at Town Hall in <a href="/topics//Hempstead,_NY">Hempstead</a> Village, Echo Park in <a href="/topics//West_Hempstead,_NY">West Hempstead</a> and <a href="/topics//Levittown,_NY">Levittown</a> Hall. 
 FEMA RECOVERY CENTERS 
 <a href="/topics//Nassau_County,_NY">NASSAU</a> COUNTY 
 Cedar Creek Park, Seaford 
 <a href="/topics//Long_Beach,_NY">Long Beach</a> Recreation Center and Ice Arena 
 Island Park Village Hall 
 <a href="/topics//Nassau_County,_NY">Nassau</a> County Community College, Garden City 
 New Cassel Community Center Garden, <a href="/topics//Westbury,_NY">Westbury</a> 
 <a href="/topics//Suffolk_County,_NY">SUFFOLK</a> COUNTY 
 Huntington Town Hall Monday only 
 H. Lee Dennison Building in Hauppauge 
 <a href="/topics//Islip,_NY">Islip</a> Emergency Operations Center in <a href="/topics//Islip,_NY">Islip</a> 
 <a href="/topics//Mastic,_NY">Mastic</a> Recreation Center 
 <a href="/topics//Lindenhurst,_NY">Lindenhurst</a> Library 
 <a href="/topics//Suffolk_County,_NY">Suffolk</a> County Center in Riverhead 
 The agency has activated its transitional shelter program, which allows those who cannot return to their homes because of storm damage to stay in participating hotels, motels or other housing. Applicants must first register with FEMA, either at a recovery center, by calling 800-621-3362 or by going to DisasterAssistance.gov. 
 SHELTERS 
 <a href="/topics//Nassau_County,_NY">NASSAU</a> COUNTY The Red Cross shelter is open in Building P of <a href="/topics//Nassau_County,_NY">Nassau</a> Community College in Garden City. 
 <a href="/topics//Suffolk_County,_NY">SUFFOLK</a> COUNTY Shelters have closed. Those needing emergency housing can seek assistance and placement at any Disaster Recovery Center or by calling 877-733-2767. 
 MOLD REMOVAL 
 Residents who have moved back into homes that have been flooded will need to rid their homes of mold. Items that stayed wet for two days will have mold growing on them, even if it can’t be seen. 
 * Health officials advise throwing out items made of cloth, unless they can be washed in hot water. 
 * Use bleach to clean mold off hard surfaces such as floors, stoves, sinks, toys, counter tops, plates and tools. 
 * Never mix bleach with ammonia or other cleaners. 
 * Wear rubber boots, rubber gloves, goggles, and mask. 
 * Open windows and doors to get fresh air. 
 * Mix no more than one cup of bleach in one gallon of water to wash items. 
 * If the surface of the item is rough, scrub the surface with a stiff brush. 
 * Rinse the item with clean water. 
 * Dry the item or leave it out to dry. 
 HOUSEHOLD HAZARDOUS WASTE 
 <a href="/topics//Suffolk_County,_NY">Suffolk</a> County residents can drop off potentially hazardous household products from flood-damaged homes, including solvents, paints, cleaners, oil, propane tanks, batteries, weed or bug killers, car batteries and bleach, starting Nov. 12 at Venetian Shores Park in <a href="/topics//Lindenhurst,_NY">Lindenhurst</a>, <a href="/topics//Islip,_NY">Islip</a> Multipurpose Recycling Facility in Holbrook, Wastewater Treatment Plant in Patchogue and at Highway Barn in Patchogue. 
 The Town of Oyster Bay and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has set up a household hazardous waste collection site. Residents can take items to the Town’s Solid Waste Disposal Complex on Bethpage-Sweet Hollow Road in Old Bethpage, from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday, until Nov. 30. 
 CURFEWS 
 <a href="/topics//Suffolk_County,_NY">Suffolk</a> County police are enforcing a curfew, prohibiting motorists and pedestrians south of Montauk Highway in <a href="/topics//Babylon,_NY">Babylon</a> Village, <a href="/topics//Lindenhurst,_NY">Lindenhurst</a> and Copiague from dusk until dawn. Montauk Highway will remain open to traffic. Curfew violators may be arrested. 
 The curfew in <a href="/topics//Long_Beach,_NY">Long Beach</a> remains in effect, but now stretches from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. 
 SCAM WARNINGS 
 <a href="/topics//Suffolk_County,_NY">Suffolk</a> County police remind residents that most utility work is done outside with no need for crews to enter homes. If someone asks to enter a home, claiming to work for a utility company, ask for photo identification and look for a company logo on vehicles. If still suspicious, call 911 for police assistance. 
 Scambook, an online complaint resolution site, offers these tips for making donations: 
 * Contact the state attorney general's office or the National Association of State Charity Officials (NASCO) to make sure a charity is officially registered. Websites such as guidestar.org and charitynavigator.org also can help determine legitimacy. 
 * Do not send personal or financial information, or wire money, in response to an unsolicited email call for donations. 
 * Don't give in to pressure. A legitimate charity will not pressure or rush you to donate immediately. It's OK to say "no." 
 * Never provide any personal information, such as social security number or banking information, over the phone. 
 * Fake charities commonly use logos or names similar to more widely known and established charity organizations. If anyone claims to be associated with a more well-known charity, call the official organization for confirmation. 
 TRANSPORTATION 
 The <a href="/topics//Long_Island,_NY">Long Island</a> Rail Road is operating with near-normal service on all but the <a href="/topics//Long_Beach,_NY">Long Beach</a> branch. Train shuttles are operating between <a href="/topics//Long_Beach,_NY">Long Beach</a> and Lynbrook on weekdays, supplemented by bus service. 
 ELECTRICITY AND GAS 
 Electricity outages should be reported to 800-490-0075, online at liaccount.com/outage or by texting OUT to 695472. 
 Visual surveys to assess homes that may need electrical inspections continue in <a href="/topics//Nassau_County,_NY">Nassau</a> County, and some may lead to requests for a formal electrical inspection. Once inspections have been completed, LIPA requests a letter from a licensed electrician or electrical inspection certificate be faxed to 631-844-3643 or emailed to servicecert@service.lipower.org 
 Gas leaks should be reported to National Grid at 800-490-0045. 
 KEY PHONE NUMBERS 
 LIPA: 800-490-0075 or 631-755-6900 NATIONAL GRID: 800-490-0045 for gas leaks and 800-930-5003 for service STATE CONSUMER AFFAIRS PRICE GOUGING HOTLINE: 888-684-4274 FEMA DISASTER ASSISTANCE HOTLINE: 800-621-3362 STATE INSURANCE HOTLINE: 800-339-1759 
 For information about temporary storm related relief and clean up jobs registration is available on the State Department of Labor website -- labor.ny.gov 
 OTHER ASSISTANCE 
 * <a href="/topics//Suffolk_County,_NY">Suffolk</a> County is hiring temporary workers to assist in restoration. Workers who temporarily or permanently lost employment because of the storm, are unemployed, or displaced may be eligible for work including debris removal, roadway clearning, and building or grounds cleanup. The work would be for 35 hours per week, with pay of $14.89 per hour and may last as long as 12 weeks. For more information, call 631-853-6600 or go to the employment center in Hauppauge with two forms of identification. 
 * The <a href="/topics//Suffolk_County,_NY">Suffolk</a> County Water Authority is suggesting its customers who expect to have their power and heat off for an extended period have their water turned off temporarily to prevent pipes from freezing. All water restoration fees will be waived for SCWA customers who call by Dec. 1. Residents should call the authority’s customer service office at 631-698-9500. 
 * The Phobia and Trauma Clinic at Hofstra University is offering free counseling and therapeutic services for <a href="/topics//Long_Island,_NY">Long Island</a>ers who have suffered loss and hardship as a result of Sandy. For more information, call 516-463-5660. 
 *<a href="/topics//Long_Beach,_NY">Long Beach</a> City Hall is open for essential city business such as licensing and bill payment from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. weekdays. 
 * <a href="/topics//Nassau_County,_NY">Nassau</a> County residents who lost documents in the storm should call the county clerk’s office for information about getting replacement documents. Residents should call 516-571-6377 for more information and to request a certified copy of a deed or mortgage documents. 
 *The state Department of Financial Services has set up a storm response center at the <a href="/topics//Merrick,_NY">Merrick</a> Jewish Centre at 225 Fox Blvd. in <a href="/topics//Merrick,_NY">Merrick</a>. The center, open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily until further notice, will provide assistance fwith storm-related insurance issues. 
 * Immunizations are being provided in hard-hit areas to residents and first responders using CHS’s existing Healthy Sundays network of free services, which is staffed by CHS professionals who volunteer their time and expertise, in partnership with local parishes and community centers: 
 * <a href="/topics//Suffolk_County,_NY">Suffolk</a> County Health Services personnel are dispensing influenza and tetanus vaccines for adults at its five Disaster Recovery Centers in <a href="/topics//Suffolk_County,_NY">Suffolk</a> County. Health officials recommend vaccinations for residents who have been exposed to flood waters and debris and who have not received a tetanus vaccine in the past 10 years. 
 * New York State has extended time for Department of Motor Vehicle renewals, tax filings and payments, and bond payments for residents and businesses in <a href="/topics//Nassau_County,_NY">Nassau</a>, <a href="/topics//Suffolk_County,_NY">Suffolk</a> and Westchester counties and in New York City 
 * The state also will replace food stamps lost in the storm in areas hardest hit. Current recipients of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP, will be automatically issued 50 percent of their benefits starting this week, Cuomo's office announced.

TXTSAND11.WEB

Resources and assistance for Sandy survival

lifood crop

Seventeen days after superstorm Sandy hit the metropolitan area, 1,888 customers remained without electricity Thursday night, LIPA said.
It was not clear when those customers -- 1,594 in <a href="/topics//Nassau_County,_NY">Nassau</a>, 174 in <a href="/topics//Suffolk_County,_NY">Suffolk</a>, 120 on the Rockaway Peninsula -- would finally be restored. But, those active outages were down from about 6,000 on Wednesday.
At the height of the outages, more than 945,000 customers were without power.
 The current number of outages excludes customers with damaged electrical systems that can't be powered without repair, LIPA said on its website.
Meanwhile, LIPA and <a href="/topics//National_Grid">National Grid</a> continue to be scrutinized for their response to the post-storm restoration, as LIPA chief operating officer Michael Hervey, who earlier this week announced his resignation amid a firestorm of criticism, admitted the authority was overwhelmed by the staggering workload generated by Sandy.
The army of workers that converged on <a href="/topics//Long_Island,_NY">Long Island</a> to repair a crippled electric grid -- more than 14,000 in all -- actually thwarted LIPA and National Grid's ability to dispatch crews to effectively complete work, and pushed costs to record levels, Hervey said.
The problem: an antiquated system for dispatching crews that could not keep up with the staggering workload caused by superstorm Sandy and a constantly swelling workforce.
"The procedures were not made for that large a workforce," Hervey acknowledged Wednesday. "It started to slow down the process."
Separately, a day after Hervey said he would step down, National Grid said it was promoting its top official on the Long Island restoration effort. John Bruckner, president of Grid's Long Island electric operations, was appointed president of the company's entire U.S. electric operations, encompassing upstate and New England territories.
"This was planned before Hurricane Sandy," spokeswoman Wendy Ladd said.
National Grid announced to employees in a memo Wednesday that it had promoted Bruckner and congratulated employees for their "outstanding work" after the storm. 
In a copy of the memo shown to Newsday, <a href="/topics//Tom_King">Tom King</a>, president of National Grid US, told employees "Our performance during Hurricane Sandy and the Nov. 7 nor'easter is a great example of what we can do together as one company." 
Hundreds of thousands of Long <a href="/topics//New_York_Islanders">Islanders</a> who went as much as two weeks without power have railed against the <a href="/topics//Long_Island_Power_Authority">Long Island Power Authority</a> and its primary contractor, National Grid, for communications breakdowns, mixed messages on home inspections and what some have called a lack of preparedness. LIPA's 100 employees oversee the contract with National Grid, which employs thousands of workers, and contracts with out-of-state crews, to restore power. 
As LIPA reported the dwindling number of active outages amid the scrutiny, it is beginning to review why elements of the process broke down. Among them, Hervey said, was the system for dispatching crews and tracking work.
While LIPA-branded trucks owned by National Grid, which manages the electrical system, have mobile data terminals linked to dispatchers, the thousands of out-of-state workers did not. They required paperwork tickets and paper maps fed at area substations.
"The system falls under its own weight," said a former National Grid manager.
Hervey said, "We need to look at it, because those stories have come up a lot in terms of bottlenecks."
Customers can attest to it.
"There were a lot of people here, they were not used efficiently," observed Barbara Prushik of South <a href="/topics//Massapequa,_NY">Massapequa</a>, who had no power for 12 days. Repair crews were "sitting in parking lots, they were baby-sitting telephone poles and equipment, they didn't get any instructions where to go. They weren't used properly. Just total inefficiency."
Hervey agreed.
"The ability to manage that many crews stretched the capability" of National Grid's systems, he said. " . . . You end up with bottlenecks in just assigning work."
It also led desperate customers to flag down repair vehicles as if they were ice cream trucks, urging crews to work on outages that the dispatch system didn't know existed.
"It just didn't seem like crews were deployed properly," said David Ozer of <a href="/topics//Roslyn_Heights,_NY">Roslyn Heights</a>. "I had to flag somebody down, and when I got them, it showed on their map that I had power." He did not.
"It just turned into a complete free-for-all," he said. "I can only imagine the cost."
National Grid did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In the two weeks since Sandy struck, National Grid amassed one of the largest restoration work forces ever on LIPA's behalf -- nearly five times the previous record, which was for Tropical Storm Irene last year.
For that storm, 3,000 workers restored service to 523,000 customers in about a week -- at a cost of $176 million. It has taken the 14,000 workers two weeks to restore more than 1 million outages. "Clearly it's going to be a very large number," Hervey said of the cost.
Peter Schlussler, a former KeySpan inventory manager who now sits on the Suffolk County Legislature's LIPA Oversight Committee, said an informed estimate puts the Sandy restoration cost at $700 million to $800 million.
While declining to comment on that number, Hervey said 90 percent or more of the costs could be reimbursed by the <a href="/topics//Federal_Emergency_Management_Agency">Federal Emergency Management Agency</a>, which is expected to pay up to 75 percent of LIPA's costs for Irene.
Hervey offered praise for Bruckner's efforts.
"I think John is a great guy, great to work with and great advocate for LIPA and for our utility," he said. "He's certainly always done the job [for] the Long Island customer."
With John Valenti

LILIPA16

LIPA: Post-Sandy outages now under 2,500

liSTORM crop

The Town of North Hempstead took steps to repair its public works department building, by authorizing the bonding of $185,000 at a special town board meeting Tuesday night. 
 At the height of superstorm Sandy, part of the second-floor metal roof blew off. The building, on Denton Avenue in New Hyde Park, is department headquarters and home to 100 employees. 
 Deputy town supervisor Chris Senior characterized the financing as precautionary and said he expects the bill to be “almost completely paid for by FEMA.” 
 “It makes sense to have to get the financing from FEMA before we have to bond, that way if we don’t, it will allow us not to spend cash,” he said. 
 Above: North Hempstead Town Hall &nbsp;

Bond OKd to fix North Hempstead building

Bond OKd to fix North Hempstead Town building

north hempstead town hall cropped

With hotel occupancy rates high and apartment vacancy rates low, federal, state and local officials have teamed up to bring a first-of-its-kind emergency housing program to post-Sandy Long Island. 
 Contractors will be paid to perform "quick fix" repairs so residents can live in their storm-damaged homes during longer-term renovations. 
 The new <a href="/topics//Federal_Emergency_Management_Agency">Federal Emergency Management Agency</a> program is partly a recognition by officials that mobile homes and rental properties aren't a viable solution to the housing crunch in the metropolitan area. 
 "FEMA has put together a program that is really a first in this country," said Jerry Hauer, commissioner of <a href="/topics//New_York_(state)">New York</a>'s Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services. "This takes the homes that are marginally inhabitable and makes them habitable so people get back into their homes." 
 Officials announced the program Wednesday afternoon at <a href="/topics//Nassau_County,_NY">Nassau</a> County's Office of Emergency Management in <a href="/topics//Bethpage_State_Park,_NY">Bethpage</a>. County Executive Edward Mangano and <a href="/topics//Suffolk_County,_NY">Suffolk</a> Deputy County Executive Regina Calcaterra were in attendance. 
 There are no reliable estimates of how many homes could be eligible for the assistance. 
 The federal government will pick up the bulk of the tab for the program -- called Sheltering and Temporary Essential Power, or STEP -- with counties and local municipalities shouldering the rest, officials said. 
 Examples of the work include patching windows or exterior doors, covering damaged roofs with tarps and doing minor electrical work necessary for inspections before a house can be deemed habitable, officials said. 
 Homeowners can then pursue major repairs with FEMA's traditional Individual Assistance program. Any cash <a href="/topics//Benefit_(designer)">benefit</a> received from STEP won't count against that federal assistance, officials said. 
 "It will allow them the ability to get into their home while they do the rest of their repairs and be safe, be warm and be able to bring their family back together," said FEMA coordinating officer Mike Byrne. 
 People can register immediately for the program by calling FEMA's assistance number: 800-621-3362. 
 What FEMA officials have learned since Sandy bashed Long Island is that the region has a particular set of housing issues that makes it unique, Byrne said. 
 The traditional disaster zone strategy of bringing in temporary housing units, as done after Katrina, wouldn't work here, Byrne said. "There's no place to put them." 
 Providing rental assistance for apartments was also problematic, with the local vacancy rate at less than 5 percent, he said. 
 Hotels and motels as stopgap measures are no solution either, he said, because the holiday season is approaching and "everyone wants to come here and the hotels are full." 
 The approach of winter cold was another factor driving FEMA's decision to find an untried remedy. 
 "This is a must-do thing," Byrne said. "Lives are at stake. The welfare of the people whose homes were damaged is in jeopardy." 
 As officials scrambled to address the housing crisis, they admitted being perplexed by an "underrepresentation" of <a href="/topics//New_York_(state)">New York</a> State residents seeking FEMA assistance. An estimated 190,000 families have applied for FEMA assistance, low for a metropolitan area with 15 million people, Byrne said. 
 "I don't think we have anywhere close to the number of people that should apply applying," he said. "Something's not connecting in terms of people that need assistance." 
 Mangano called the number of flood-damaged homes that can't be lived in "countless," and said FEMA's new program is tailored to meet the needs of storm victims. 
 "Clearly, we have an alarming number of residents that are sheltering in places without the proper health and safety repairs in place," he said.

LIFEMA15

FEMA program to let LIers live in Sandy-damaged homes

liFOOTDLP

The Village of Great Neck will allow residents who have minor storm damage from Sandy and last week’s nor’easter to receive building permits at a discounted rate. 
 Under the plan, which continues until Jan. 31, 2013, homeowners can receive a temporary building permit by filing a form and sending photographs of the damage to the village. Building permit fees will be waived. 
 For those with structural damage or in need of more extensive repairs, the village will charge half of the normal building permit fee. 
 Building permit applications related to Sandy or the nor’easter will be considered high priority in the village. 
 Mayor Ralph Kreitzman said the village instituted the same policy after a microburst two years ago caused extensive damage to homes. 
 “It’s painful enough to have damage to your home,” Kreitzman said. “We want to make it a little easier.” &nbsp;

Great Neck eases fees on building permits

hlGNECK17--cropped

Angry Great Neck Estates residents lashed out at the Long Island Power Authority at a village meeting Monday night, while town, county and state officials in attendance shared their own frustrations with the utility. 
 “It’s a disaster — communication has been horrible,” Village Mayor David Fox said, describing the content of LIPA’s twice-daily conference calls with public officials as “rhetoric, lies, outright nonsense.” 
 Some village residents had been without power for 15 days after superstorm Sandy, and prevailed upon the village to consider burying utility lines or making it easier to remove problem trees. 
 “Residents are angry and they have every right to be angry,” said Nassau County Legis. Judi Bosworth (D-Great Neck). “I have never experienced anything like this. ... This can never happen again. We all need to join forces and figure out what we need to do.” 
 Assemb. Michelle Schimel (D-Great Neck) described talking in Saddle Rock with linemen from Minnesota who said they had been unable to work for two days because they were waiting for new utility poles. Schimel said the utility had told officials that there were no supply-chain problems. 
 “I’m hoping once things settle down, I hope heads will roll,” Schimel told the crowd. “We need some real reform. I hope LIPA appointments are meaningful, tactical and intelligent, rather than just political.” 
 LIPA representatives did not respond to a request for comment. &nbsp;

Village residents, officials blast LIPA

Great Neck Estates residents, officials lash out at LIPA

LILIPAcrews/jz

Thousands of <a href="/topics//Long_Island,_NY">Long Island</a>ers have housing assistance money in their pockets but no place to go because hotels and motels are jammed and county officials haven't decided which temporary housing options to pursue. 
 Two weeks after Sandy ravaged the region, <a href="/topics//Federal_Emergency_Management_Agency">Federal Emergency Management Agency</a> officials say they're awaiting requests for housing from local government. 
 Options for <a href="/topics//Nassau_County,_NY">Nassau</a> and <a href="/topics//Suffolk_County,_NY">Suffolk</a> include placing mobile homes on storm-scarred properties, creating large temporary communities and moving families into foreclosed properties. 
 "There is certainly going to be an immediate need for temporary housing," said <a href="/topics//Nassau_County,_NY">Nassau</a> Health Commissioner Lawrence Eisenstein, who heads the county's Recovery Housing Task Force. "We have many options on the table. We've got to see what's feasible." 
 Besides hotels, motels and hospitals -- all of which are full -- unused space in nursing homes, unoccupied and undamaged homes, military bases and <a href="/topics//Higher_Education">college campuses</a> will be considered, Eisenstein said. Even cabins at a <a href="/topics//Baiting_Hollow,_NY">Baiting Hollow</a> Boy Scout camp are under consideration. 
 Homeland Secretary <a href="/topics//Janet_Napolitano">Janet Napolitano</a> said Sunday that securing long-term housing for people displaced by the storm is the federal government's most pressing issue. 
 "The number one issue is housing . . . finding housing for people, hopefully in an area in the community so kids can keep going to the same school," she said at a news conference on Staten Island. 
 "We receive 6,000 phone calls a day from people looking for a place to stay," said Marc Soblick, 32, general manager of the <a href="/topics//Best_Western">Best Western</a> <a href="/topics//Woodbury,_NY">Woodbury</a> Inn, one of the FEMA temporary housing sites. "Demand is so high. There's just no availability." 
 <a href="/topics//Suffolk_County,_NY">Suffolk</a> director of real estate Jill Rosen-Nikoloff said the county reached an agreement late last week with the <a href="/topics//Long_Island,_NY">Long Island</a> Housing Partnership and federal Department of Housing and Urban Development to use rehabilitated foreclosed homes. Eighteen homes had been identified by Saturday, she said. 
 "We're on the hunt for hotels, apartments, spare housing stock, FEMA trailers -- whatever we need," Rosen-Nikoloff said. 
 FEMA administrator Craig Fugate said hundreds of mobile homes were being moved into the region for possible use in <a href="/topics//New_York_(state)">New York</a> and <a href="/topics//New_Jersey">New Jersey</a>. The agency wouldn't say how many temporary houses might be needed on <a href="/topics//Long_Island,_NY">Long Island</a>. 
 "Discussions are going on with FEMA about transitional housing units, the numbers that might be needed and, if those units are brought into <a href="/topics//Suffolk_County,_NY">Suffolk</a> County, where they might be set up," Rosen-Nikoloff said. 
 County and FEMA officials are determining whether it's possible to set up mobile homes on properties where houses were damaged so homeowners can be present while repairs are made. 
 That option -- used in New Orleans after <a href="/topics//Hurricane_Katrina">Hurricane Katrina</a> -- has its limits. Each site must be evaluated by FEMA, and a property in a flood zone may be rejected, Rosen-Nikoloff said. The mobile units must comply with local building codes and have sewer, water and electric hookups. 
 Assemb. Al Graf (R-<a href="/topics//Holbrook,_NY">Holbrook</a>), who favors that option, said he asked County Executive Steve Bellone to explore the possibility. 
 Flood victims hoping to replace a friend's or relative's sofa with a FEMA-approved hotel room are finding few available near their homes. 
 Mary Halinski, 43, of <a href="/topics//Oakdale,_NY">Oakdale</a>, said she'd rather stay in a cramped room with her husband and three children at a relative's home than in a hotel near <a href="/topics//John_F._Kennedy_International_Airport">Kennedy Airport</a> in Queens -- the closest vacancy she could find last week. 
 "This is where I live," Halinski said of her Cedar Place home. "This is where my children are supposed to go to school." 
 The website -- femaevachotels.com -- allows disaster victims to search by state for hotels that have agreed to set aside a block of rooms to assist with disaster relief. The website listed a half-dozen or so hotels in <a href="/topics//Nassau_County,_NY">Nassau</a> and <a href="/topics//Suffolk_County,_NY">Suffolk</a>. Other choices are as far as Schenectady or Albany. 
 "Anybody I've spoken with -- nobody is staying at a FEMA-approved housing," she said. 
 Halinski said she and her husband are going to use the $4,116 in assistance received from FEMA to pay rent for an apartment -- as soon as they find one. 
 "They pay the first two months and then you have to resubmit for more months," she said. "They don't pay security deposit. I would be responsible for going around and negotiating the best price possible." 
 FEMA spokesman William Rukeyser said a scarcity of hotel rooms is common after disasters. 
 "This is a familiar, sad story we hear from disaster survivors all over the country," he said. "People have to make very tough decisions: Do I stay in really primitive conditions to stay near home, or do I opt for more comfort and lack the ability to be near my home every day, or near my neighbors?" 
 Vin-Ann Klein, of Lindenhurst, has stayed with her son in Merrick since she and her husband waded through floodwater to flee their home when Sandy struck. She received a two-month housing allowance of $3,100 from FEMA but can't find a place to stay. 
 "Every hotel I called within a 10-mile radius is full," she said. "They have no rooms and they won't have rooms for a month. I thought long before now that this would be resolved." 
 After Felicia and Ian Jones' home in West Islip flooded, they checked FEMA's list and found the closest hotel was in Westbury. With both working full time and a child in a local school, that wasn't feasible. 
 "We have no choice but to stay locally with relatives for now," Felicia Jones said. "We're hoping FEMA will provide a trailer or a mobile home on our property because we need to stay in this area, so the kids can have normalcy, and we can overview repairs to our home." 
 With Nicole Fuller

LIFEMA12

LI officials hunt for housing amid shortage

lihous11 -- cropped

More than 44,000 federal aid requests have been filed in Nassau County for federal aid in the wake of superstorm Sandy -- more than any locale in the state, Gov. <a href="/topics//Andrew_Cuomo">Andrew M. Cuomo</a> said Friday. 
 Cuomo said there is no "definitive" number on the amount of people affected by Sandy 12 days after it hit, but FEMA said requests provide one way to tell, and that number in <a href="/topics//New_York_(state)">New York</a> is 154,000 The governor said that number "will go up." 
 Besides Nassau, there have been more than 30,000 applications from Queens and 16,496 from <a href="/topics//Suffolk_County,_NY">Suffolk</a> County. 
 In his latest storm briefing, the governor also announced a new Empire State Relief Fund, with actors Robert DeNiro, <a href="/topics//Al_Pacino">Al Pacino</a> and <a href="/topics//Whoopi_Goldberg">Whoopi Goldberg</a> doing public-service announcements for the fund on television. 
 Cuomo also said that "reports are the lines are shorter" at <a href="/topics//Long_Island,_NY">Long Island</a> gas stations Friday, the first day that county governments implemented an "odd-even" gasoline rationing system. 
 "One of the things we have to do is to get buyers to relax," Cuomo said, referring to the rationing system, in which drivers with license plates ending in an odd number can buy on odd days, while drivers with plates ending in an even number can only buy on even days. 
 The system also was implemented the same day in <a href="/topics//New_York_(state)">New York</a> City so the "system is synchronized." 
 "We didn't want people shopping from one county to the other," the governor said. 
 The governor didn't weigh in on a request made Wednesday by Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano to have the U.S. military take over the "managerial structure" of LIPA to complete the restorations. 
 "People want as much help as they can get," the governor said. "I understand that. We all want the same thing." 
 With Ellen Yan

Region/State

STCUOM10

Cuomo: Nassau FEMA aid requests top 44,000

fema crop

Of the six people staying in Marko Vrban's house in <a href="/topics//St._James,_NY">St. James</a>, it's his 78-year-old father-in-law, Srecko Olic, who needs power the most. 
 Olic suffered a massive stroke in 2006 that left him paralyzed. He relies on a breathing machine and a hospital bed run on electricity. He can't chew his food; it has to pass through a processor. 
 Now that energy is scarce -- his family has just a small generator -- they power his bed only when he has to be moved and are judicious about using the other machines he needs. 
 "It's not easy," said Jasmin Vrban, Olic's 36-year-old daughter. "You unplug one thing to plug another thing and then the generator goes out and you have to start all over again." 
 Residents in <a href="/topics//St._James,_NY">St. James</a>, <a href="/topics//Brookville,_NY">Brookville</a> and <a href="/topics//Port_Jefferson,_NY">Port Jefferson</a> could be among the last to regain power on <a href="/topics//Long_Island,_NY">Long Island</a>, LIPA officials said earlier this week. 
 And while many say the lack of electricity is merely an inconvenience -- they've been wearing their hats to bed, taking miles-long walks to keep warm and staying with friends when needed -- the Vrbans worry about what a long-term outage could mean for their family. 
 They've informed LIPA about Olic's condition by phone -- "They say they'll make a note of it," Jasmin Vrban said -- and have alerted utility workers in person. 
 Still, the power remains out. "How is a medical emergency not a priority?" she said. 
 Adding to their stress, their boiler failed Thursday night and if it can't be fixed, the family will have to leave their home. Asked where they will go, Vrban said only: "I don't know." 
 Gia Appell's house in <a href="/topics//Brookville,_NY">Brookville</a> is a hub for neighbors living without electricity -- a half-dozen come by each day to charge their cellphones, power their laptops, take a shower or get a break from the cold. 
 Appell, 53, a stay-at-home mom, has lived in the house with her family for 19 years. She said she's happy to help her friends, but is worried about her generator after 13 days of use. 
 "I think it's going to conk out on me at any moment," Appell said. "I have been trying to reach LIPA for the past couple of days, just for kicks. You just get a machine." 
 With red maples, white pines and kousa dogwoods down in her neighborhood, Sandy and this week's snowstorm have tested -- and in some cases, snapped -- the power lines in her area. LIPA officials say more than 100 utility poles have fallen in <a href="/topics//Brookville,_NY">Brookville</a>, <a href="/topics//Port_Jefferson,_NY">Port Jefferson</a> and <a href="/topics//St._James,_NY">St. James</a>. 
 Still, Appell said, she's lucky. While many Long <a href="/topics//New_York_Islanders">Islanders</a> lost their homes and in some cases, their loved ones, hers is just a small inconvenience. 
 It's a sentiment shared by residents in all three communities. 
 Steve Marsh, 53, sat inside his chilly St. James home on Wednesday beside a borrowed generator that he did not yet know how to use. He's gotten offers from family and friends to stay with them but wants to remain at home. 
 "As the temperature goes down, my wife gets more tempted," he said. "But I don't mind snuggling under the covers." 
 In <a href="/topics//Port_Jefferson,_NY">Port Jefferson</a>, Karen Mann, 66, and her husband were without power for more than a week -- it came on and went out again -- before it was restored earlier this week. 
 During the outage, she had to leave her house to get warm and even when she returned, she was never without a coat. 
 "They have the nerve to say they're going to raise the rates," she said of LIPA. "Are you kidding?"

LITHRE10

Enduring struggle for last without power

liSANDYPOWER crop

As if superstorm Sandy weren't bad enough, a nor'easter that arrived Wednesday night knocked down trees and power lines, closed roads, temporarily suspended railroad service and left behind 8 inches of snow in areas, officials said.
The good news was, coastal flooding wasn't as bad as predicted, <a href="/topics//National_Weather_Service">National Weather Service</a> meteorologist Lauren Nash said Thursday morning.
The bad news is that LIPA, which had promised in the aftermath of Sandy to restore service within seven to 10 days to 90 percent of its powerless customers, said almost 60,000 customers lost electricity overnight -- the outages topping 203,570 by just before 10 a.m.
The weather service issued a warning to drivers, advising of treacherous road conditions on Thursday morning.
The <a href="/topics//Long_Island_Expressway,_NY">Long Island Expressway</a> in <a href="/topics//Nassau_County,_NY">Nassau</a> and western <a href="/topics//Suffolk_County,_NY">Suffolk</a> was covered in snow and ice early Thursday, with entire lanes looking as if they had not been plowed overnight; road conditions were better into Queens.
Nassau County police said just after 9 a.m. Thursday that the LIE's eastbound lanes at Exit 40 were closed because of an auto accident. Cameras showed that traffic was restored to all but the right lane by early afternoon.
There have been intermittent closures on all parkways because of downed trees, flooding and storm-related accidents. Buildups of an icy mix of snow and slush caused early morning delays.
Nassau County police said that conditions were difficult on the roads Thursday morning. "Overnight, a bunch of roads were out. But this morning most of the major roads are clear. It's those secondary and tertiary roads that are still a problem -- and they've begun to get to them," police said.
As far as damage: "We've got trees down, lines down." He said there is some road flooding and "multiple reports of fender-benders."
Suffolk County police said there had been numerous reports of downed trees and live wires, nor'easter-related fender-benders and even two road closures in the Huntington area -- on <a href="/topics//Jericho,_NY">Jericho</a> Turnpike and on Park Avenue.
"We got some pretty good wind gusts," Nash, the meteorologist said, noting that gusts in the 55- to 60-mph range were recorded. And, she said, <a href="/topics//Long_Island,_NY">Long Island</a> and the metropolitan area got even more snow than predicted because of how this most-recent storm tracked. High pressure to the north of the system trapped a cold, low-pressure mass here -- over us -- and that led to significant snow.
In <a href="/topics//North_Valley_Stream,_NY">North Valley Stream</a> and <a href="/topics//Albertson,_NY">Albertson</a>, 8 inches of snow was recorded, while Suffolk's snow total topped out at 4.4 inches in Stony Brook.
In Queens, 7 inches of snow was recorded in Flushing.
This latest storm led to a host of new problems for the <a href="/topics//Long_Island_Rail_Road">Long Island Rail Road</a>, most resolved to pre-nor'easter levels by Thursday morning's commute.
The <a href="/topics//LIRR">LIRR</a> said early Thursday that it had resumed its modified schedule on all branches except the <a href="/topics//Long_Beach,_NY">Long Beach</a> Branch after Wednesday night's delays and weather suspensions. Customers should expect weather-related delays, longer waits and crowded cars, the railroad advised.
No doubt, the nor'easter would only worsen LIPA customers' frustration.
LIPA outages crept back up to more than 200,000 overnight. Some 60,000 lost power Wednesday as a result of the second storm, after superstorm Sandy knocked out power to more than 945,000. But outages that stood at more than 207,000 at 5 a.m. Thursday spiked to 262,384 just before 1:20 p.m.
LIPA spokesman Mark Gross said the new numbers, in addition to outages from the nor'easter, include those that had previously been removed from the outage figures from the Rockaway Peninsula to Long Beach, where devastation has rendered many homes unable to accept electric service. Some of those homes are being re-energized after LIPA set up temporary substations in the areas. 
It was not clear when those customers can expect restored service.
The utility warned customers that if they see any downed wire, "treat it as if it is a live electric wire," stay away from it and report it to LIPA immediately at 800-490-0075 or 631-755-6900. Keep in mind that wires can become entangled in and hidden from view by storm debris, the utility advised.
In the wake of the nor'easter, towns found themselves switching from Sandy cleanup to nor'easter cleanup.
In <a href="/topics//Glen_Cove,_NY">Glen Cove</a>, city crews performed "aggressive debris cleanup" in anticipation of the nor'easter -- in part to prevent unsecured objects from being tossed around in the high winds -- and then worked from Wednesday evening until 5:30 a.m. Thursday, salting, sanding and plowing roads, Mayor Ralph Suozzi said Thursday.
The city's major roads appeared clear Thursday morning and the parking lots of Glen Cove High School, which has served as a shelter since superstorm Sandy struck, had also been neatly plowed. City trucks and workers in neon jackets were a <a href="/topics//Common_(musician)">common</a> sight around Glen Cove.
Suozzi said efforts to place sand or salt on the roads and then plow them were no different from that of a typical storm, but added that city public works employees had been working overtime to collect debris and felled trees from roads and curbs.
In <a href="/topics//North_Hempstead,_NY">North Hempstead</a>, crews that had been working to clear trees downed by Sandy had to be redirected to clear roads on Wednesday night. Town Supervisor Jon <a href="/topics//Jon_Kaiman">Kaiman</a> said more than 150 workers were sent out Wednesday night to clear the roads.
"The roads were horrific," Kaiman said. "As we saw the nature of the snow coming down, we shifted a lot quicker to the highway folks' clearing the roads."
The greatest damage in the town came to areas already hardest hit by Sandy: Great Neck, Port Washington, and significant areas of Roslyn and the Willistons, Kaiman said. Kaiman said several hundred utility crews were back in North Hempstead on Thursday, and that town crews would have all the town's roads clear by early afternoon.
Areas in the Town of Smithtown were covered with about 4 inches of heavy, wet snow by the nor'easter, officials said.
"You have snow on top of leaves now . . . so we're seeing spotty flooding all over town," said John Valentine, director of the town's public safety office.
To combat flooding, crews cleared drains of the tree debris, he said. "By day's end they're saying the slush and snow will freeze again, so it's got to get off the roads," he said.
Glenn Jorgensen, the town's superintendent of highways, said at least 80 vehicles were out early Wednesday evening to address the snow. 
"Yesterday we went from clearing the debris off the side of the roads, to plowing and sanding the roads at night," he said of shifting gears from post-Sandy efforts to the nor'easter. Plows continued through midnight Wednesday and resumed again at 4 a.m. Thursday, starting with main roads and moving onto more interior roads, Jorgensen said. 
As of 11:45 a.m., asphalt could be seen on the roads, said Jorgensen, adding, "Right now we're in good shape."
Reports from the East End indicated a lighter snowfall, with not enough sticking on the ground to require plowing in Riverhead and Southold.
There was one bright side to this most-recent storm, the weather service said. Coastal flooding was supposed to be major in areas, with tidal departures 3 to 5 feet over normal expected at high tide. Those tides were lower than expected, Nash said.
And for those still without power and heat, frigid temperatures will soon be on the outs -- at least temporarily. Temperatures in the 60s are expected Sunday and Monday.
With Emily Ngo, Jennifer Barrios, Lauren R. Harrison, Mark Harrington and Mitchell Freedman

LIWEAT09

Nor'easter leaves dangerous roads, more power outages

liSTORM09

To pay for millions of dollars in cleanup costs following superstorm Sandy, local governments may end up borrowing against expected federal reimbursements. 
 The costs of recovering from the storm are hitting local governments at a time when many are struggling with weak revenues and a slow economy. Borrowing against expected federal reimbursements provides a way of financing those costs. 
 <a href="/topics//Oyster_Bay,_NY">Oyster Bay</a>, for instance, plans to borrow up to $6 million while it waits, the town disclosed this week in a borrowing document. 
 For local entities "it's a short-term strain," said <a href="/topics//Standard_&amp;_Poor's">Standard &amp; Poor's</a> analyst Karl Jacob. "It's more of a timing mismatch of laying out money and recouping" federal funds. 
 Getting reimbursed could take as long as a year; <a href="/topics//Brookhaven,_NY">Brookhaven</a>, for instance, finally received $6 million of <a href="/topics//Federal_Emergency_Management_Agency">Federal Emergency Management Agency</a> funds for Tropical Storm Irene costs in August. Tamara Wright, <a href="/topics//Brookhaven,_NY">Brookhaven</a> finance commissioner, said the Irene funds would allow the town to pay for its Sandy costs, estimated at $6.5 million, without borrowing. "We have those funds to draw upon." 
 <a href="/topics//New_York_(state)">New York</a> State Comptroller <a href="/topics//Thomas_DiNapoli">Thomas DiNapoli</a> last week projected the economic damage from superstorm Sandy could exceed $18 billion for the state. Gov. <a href="/topics//Andrew_Cuomo">Andrew Cuomo</a> has asked <a href="/topics//Barack_Obama">President Barack Obama</a> to reimburse the state and local governments for 100 percent of costs rather than the usual 75 percent. 
 In the past, the state split the 25 percent difference with local governments. This didn't happen after Irene because the state used other federal disaster funds to pay local governments' share. State Division of Budget spokesman Morris Peters declined to comment on what will happen if FEMA provides less than 100 percent reimbursement. 
 Local governments have to apply for the aid, which can include reimbursement for work on roads, airports, sewage treatment plants, schools, government buildings, bridges and utilities. FEMA has already given a blanket approval to pay salaries for debris removal in federally declared disaster areas, which include <a href="/topics//Nassau_County,_NY">Nassau</a> and <a href="/topics//Suffolk_County,_NY">Suffolk</a> counties. 
 <a href="/topics//Suffolk_County,_NY">Suffolk</a> County spokeswoman Vanessa Baird-Streeter said the county is still assessing damage and does not plan to borrow in anticipation of FEMA funds. <a href="/topics//Nassau_County,_NY">Nassau</a> County spokesman Brian Nevin said the county suffered significant damage to its <a href="/topics//Bay_Park,_NY">Bay Park</a> sewage treatment plant and West Shore Road and did not respond to a question about whether the county would seek to borrow for Sandy costs.

BZMUNI07

Towns could borrow to cover storm cleanup

BZMUNI07 CROPPED mg

A steady stream of people flowed into polls at the <a href="/topics//John_F._Kennedy">John F. Kennedy</a> Elementary School in Great Neck on Tuesday afternoon. The school had its power restored hours before, just in time for Election Day. 
 Marc Maniscalo, a Democratic poll coordinator at the school, said voting was going smoothly. For most of the voters, the school was their regular polling place, but Maniscalo said about 15 to 20 affidavit votes were cast by displaced voters from such areas as <a href="/topics//Long_Beach,_NY">Long Beach</a>. 
 “Everything’s been good. It’s a nice turnout. We’ve been getting a lot more [voters] than I expected,” he said. 
 Power — and the lack of it — was fresh on voters’ minds on Tuesday. 
 Amy Novikoff, 62, of Great Neck, said she drove from her parents’ home in <a href="/topics//Melville,_NY">Melville</a> to vote, eyeing her gas gauge all the way. Novikoff and her husband were forced from their home after they lost power. 
 Despite only having a half-tank of gas left, Novikoff said she was determined to cast her ballot for <a href="/topics//Barack_Obama">Obama</a>. 
 “There is no question in my mind I wasn’t voting,” she said. 
 Novikoff said she hadn’t been aware of the existence of affidavit voting, which Gov. <a href="/topics//Andrew_Cuomo">Andrew Cuomo</a> instituted for all displaced New Yorkers. 
 “I would have voted with my elderly parents in Melville,” Novikoff said. 
 Tuesday marked Eytan Zarabi’s first time voting. The 18-year-old Hofstra University freshman said Sandy didn’t deter him from casting his first ballot, but it did keep his mother from voting. 
 His mother, who recently became a citizen, had planned to register to vote, but scrapped the plans during her preparations for Sandy. 
 “When Sandy came on top of that, she was like, ‘Forget it — I’ll do it next time,’” Zarabi said. 
 He said many people in his family don’t vote, thinking that their votes won’t make a difference. But Zarabi said he wants to change that by setting an example for his younger cousins. 
 “It’ll make an impact,” he said.

hlPOWER06

Great Neck school gets power in time

Here are town-by-town damage assessments. The majority of officials said it is too early to make accurate estimates of the cost of damages. They stress assessments are still taking place and that numbers can fluctuate. 
 HEMPSTEAD 
 About 1,900 trees knocked down; of those, about 1,700 have been cleared. 
 No widespread closures of town roads. 
 Preliminary estimate of as many as 1,000 uninhabitable homes. 
 Source: Town spokesman Mike Deery 
 <a href="/topics//North_Hempstead,_NY">NORTH HEMPSTEAD</a> 
 About eight houses deemed uninhabitable. 
 Thousands of trees were downed, hundreds blocking roads, all of which have been cleared. 
 Area of concern: Unpowered traffic lights in main intersections around town. 
 Source: Spokesman Sidhartha Nathan 
 <a href="/topics//Oyster_Bay,_NY">OYSTER BAY</a> 
 1,200-1,500 trees down in town rights of way, many more in parks and on private properties. 
 South and North shores were hardest hit by flooding; central portion of town had most trees down. 
 Source: Spokeswoman Marta Kane 
 <a href="/topics//Glen_Cove,_NY">GLEN COVE</a> 
 No estimates yet on trees downed, residents displaced or damages. 
 Areas of concern: Oak Lane, with felled trees and no power, and East Island, with flood damage and no power. 
 Source: Mayor Ralph Suozzi 
 <a href="/topics//Long_Beach,_NY">LONG BEACH</a> 
 Boardwalk is uninhabitable; city has closed off access in many places. 
 Sewer service restored but there remains no electricity and in some areas, no gas. Water service close to being restored. Officials urging residents to remain out of their homes. Mail service suspended. All roads are open. 
 Estimate of damages is more than $100 million. 
 Areas of concern: West End and Canal areas, due to extensive flooding. Bayfront bulkheading was overrun by water, the beach and boardwalk were moved several blocks, and in some areas, the ocean meets the bay. 
 Source: City Manager Jack Schnirman 
 &nbsp; 
 HUNTINGTON 
 About 189 homes with serious structural damage, one considered uninhabitable. Might be more in the Makamah Beach area. 
 Road blockages due to downed trees and/or wires reduced from 750 to zero by end of Monday. 
 Areas of concern: Places where power outages are complex -- Round Swamp Road, Harbor Heights, West Neck, Salem <a href="/topics//Ridge,_NY">Ridge</a> and pockets of <a href="/topics//Dix_Hills,_NY">Dix Hills</a>, East Northport and Melville. 
 Source: Spokesman A.J. Carter 
 <a href="/topics//Babylon,_NY">BABYLON</a> 
 Early estimates from shoreline to <a href="/topics//Montauk,_NY">Montauk</a> Highway -- town portions only, not including villages -- indicate several hundred homes unfit to live in and 600 to 1,000 residents displaced. 
 1,626 downed town trees and trees in town rights of way. 1,216 cleared by Monday afternoon. No roads blocked due to trees. 
 Areas of concern: Areas south of <a href="/topics//Montauk,_NY">Montauk</a> Highway, especially West Drive in Copiague and East Shore Drive in <a href="/topics//Lindenhurst,_NY">Lindenhurst</a>. 
 Source: Spokesman Tim Ruggeri 
 SMITHTOWN 
 Nobody homeless. Eight houses damaged, none appear uninhabitable. 
 Estimated storm damage: $2 million.Number of downed trees: Twice or three times as many as Tropical Storm Irene. Closed roads have reopened. 
 Areas of concern: Communities along the <a href="/topics//Nissequogue,_NY">Nissequogue</a> River -- the villages of <a href="/topics//Nissequogue,_NY">Nissequogue</a> and Head of the Harbor, plus St. James and Nesconset -- which suffered major electrical issues. 
 Source: Town officials 
 ISLIP 
 Of 7,100 houses inspected by town so far, 5 percent are a total loss. Another 20 percent require an electrical inspection. A majority of buildings on the town's portion of <a href="/topics//Fire_Island,_NY">Fire Island</a> have significant structural damage, in addition to massive beach erosion. Oakdale and West Islip also suffered severe damage. 
 All roadways now open. Department of Public Works has composted 750 tons of trees, limbs and brush. 
 A little more than 12,000 residents are without power, down from a high of 70,000. Town has 112,000 LIPA customers. 
 Source: Spokeswoman Inez Birbiglia 
 BROOKHAVEN 
 More than 140 homes on the town's portion of <a href="/topics//Fire_Island,_NY">Fire Island</a> and a few dozen on the mainland are unfit for habitation. 
 About 2,100 trees have been reported down; all roads are passable. 
 Areas of concern: Mastic Beach and <a href="/topics//Fire_Island,_NY">Fire Island</a>, because of debris, downed trees and flooding. 
 Source: Spokesman Jack Krieger 
 RIVERHEAD 
 Hundreds of residents displaced due to power loss or damage. 
 $500,000 in damages to town facilities. 
 All major and secondary roads are open. Some smaller roads close occasionally due to residual flooding. 
 Areas of concern: Flooded areas south of Peconic Bay Boulevard in <a href="/topics//Jamesport,_NY">Jamesport</a>; loss of protective dune from Creek Road in <a href="/topics//Wading_River,_NY">Wading River</a> to <a href="/topics//Jamesport,_NY">Jamesport</a>; bluffs from <a href="/topics//Wading_River,_NY">Wading River</a> to <a href="/topics//Jamesport,_NY">Jamesport</a> severely eroded, some parcels losing 15 feet of property. 
 Source: Supervisor Sean Walter 
 SOUTHAMPTON 
 Fewer than 50 homes unfit for habitation. 
 Several hundred trees down and a "handful" of impassable roads -- including Dune Road -- due to flooding. 
 Source: Supervisor Anna Throne-Holst 
 EAST HAMPTON 
 Significant damage to several waterfront homes including foundations partly undermined. Significant damage to outbuildings, primarily beach houses, at several oceanfront estates from Wainscott to <a href="/topics//Montauk,_NY">Montauk</a>. 
 Gerard Drive in Springs only road still closed. 
 Areas of concern: Erosion problems in Montauk and other areas might be helped by the upcoming nor'easter, emergency services coordinator Bruce Bate said, because winds will come from a different direction and might push some sand back. 
 Source: Supervisor Bill Wilkinson and Bruce Bate 
 <a href="/topics//Southold,_NY">SOUTHOLD</a> 
 Up to two dozen homes in <a href="/topics//New_Suffolk,_NY">New Suffolk</a>, Mattituck and East Marion, and one restaurant in <a href="/topics//Southold,_NY">Southold</a> hamlet destroyed. 
 The last closed streets opened Monday; many fallen trees remain in town rights of way alongside roads. 
 Areas of concern: Low-lying areas of <a href="/topics//New_Suffolk,_NY">New Suffolk</a>, including Rabbit Lane, where several houses were destroyed or severely damaged. 
 Source: Supervisor Scott Russell 
 SHELTER ISLAND 
 No year-round homes lost; damage to summer houses not yet evaluated. 
 No streets currently blocked by downed trees. 
 Area of concern: The Ram Island Causeway, reopened to traffic but still in need of extensive repairs, which will not be done for quite some time. 
 Source: Town officials 
 <a href="/topics//Babylon,_NY">BABYLON</a> VILLAGE 
 Rough estimate of overall cost of damage $400 million, based on 2,000 homes south of Montauk Highway, each with an average of $200,000 in damage. 
 15 trees downed, five utility poles. No roads closed. 
 Areas of concern: Areas south of Robbins Avenue and Gamecock Lane, still without power and gas. 
 Source: Mayor Ralph Scordino 
 MASSAPEQUA PARK VILLAGE 
 250 village and residents' trees down. 
 Hundreds of residents displaced. 
 Area of concern: Bar Harbor area has most flood damage, most of village still without power. 
 Source: Mayor James Altadonna Jr. 
 <a href="/topics//Lindenhurst,_NY">LINDENHURST</a> VILLAGE 
 At least 50 houses condemned so far, with number of displaced residents in the hundreds. 
 Estimate of damages in the tens of millions of dollars. 
 Only road still closed is a section of South Third Street, where a tree fell across the road but is resting on a LIPA pole. Residents have electricity and worry that removing the tree may cause their power to go out so they are awaiting a LIPA crew to come and assess the situation. 
 Area of concern: South of Montauk Highway, with the area below Shore Road given particular attention. Much of the area below Montauk Highway remains without electricity or gas. 
 Source: Mayor Thomas Brennan 
 BAYVILLE VILLAGE 
 75-100 village and residents' trees down. 
 Several hundred residents displaced. 
 Area of concern: East end of village, which had many homes damaged by flooding. 
 Source: Mayor Doug Watson 
 .

LIDAMA06.WEB

Sandy's storm damage, town by town

sandy06

<a href="/topics//Long_Island,_NY">Long Island</a>'s elderly and disabled residents have no one to look in on them as temperatures dip to near freezing Saturday -- five days after Sandy struck. 
 There's no system in place to check on that vulnerable population -- and others who are isolated -- as they wait inside their homes for power and heat to return, state and local officials said. 
 "We do not currently have a system that would instruct people to go door to door," said Peter Constantakes, a state Health Department spokesman. 
 <a href="/topics//Nassau_County,_NY">Nassau</a> County police also have no plans to have officers knock on doors; <a href="/topics//Suffolk_County,_NY">Suffolk</a> police referred the question to its Office of Emergency Management, which did not return calls. 
 Constantakes said those checks aren't his agency's responsibility, adding that the state isn't recommending that hard-pressed local municipalities do so either. 
 On <a href="/topics//Long_Island,_NY">Long Island</a>, there are only scattershot plans to reach out to the elderly and frail, officials said Friday. <a href="/topics//Nassau_County,_NY">Nassau</a> and <a href="/topics//Suffolk_County,_NY">Suffolk</a> officials are urging the elderly and frail to stay with family or friends or go to designated shelters. 
 Gwen O'Shea, spokeswoman for the Health &amp; Welfare Council of Long Island, an umbrella organization of social service groups, said some of those groups are attempting to check in on clients through phone calls and visits, though many people still can't be reached by phone. 
 She said that while some are looked in on by family, friends and neighbors, others are cut off from outside contact. 
 "Social isolation is more likely to happen in a suburban setting than in other areas," O'Shea said. 
 Some religious groups -- including a few from out of state -- might go door to door as temperatures drop, she said, but that effort would only reach a fraction of the Island's frail and isolated. Temperatures in some parts of Suffolk were forecast to sink to the high 20s tomorrow. 
 O'Shea said she will talk today with volunteers about coordinating a wider response, adding that a lack of transportation and electricity -- leaving some residents uninformed -- might keep them from accessing services. 
 Sam and Dotti Feldman of West <a href="/topics//Bay_Shore,_NY">Bay Shore</a>, married 63 years, are bound for a six-month stay in <a href="/topics//Delray_Beach">Delray Beach</a>, Fla., starting Nov. 14. But until then, they will have to endure a chill so punishing it could send Sam, 87, to the emergency room; he has poor circulation in his feet and hands. 
 The couple spent Friday afternoon at the Bayshore-<a href="/topics//Brightwaters,_NY">Brightwaters</a> Public Library in <a href="/topics//Brightwaters,_NY">Brightwaters</a>, sitting on a couch on the second floor, facing a lighted fireplace. 
 "It takes its toll in pain," he said, hands trembling. "If it falls below freezing, it will get worse." 
 The Town of <a href="/topics//North_Hempstead,_NY">North Hempstead</a> announced Friday it was opening comfort stations in three locations: the Aquatic Activity Center at Tully Park in <a href="/topics//New_Hyde_Park,_NY">New Hyde Park</a>; the <a href="/topics//North_Hempstead,_NY">North Hempstead</a> "Yes We Can" Community Center in <a href="/topics//Westbury,_NY">Westbury</a>; and The Clubhouse at Harbor Links Golf Course in <a href="/topics//Port_Washington,_NY">Port Washington</a>. 
 Residents can take a hot shower, charge electronic devices and access free <a href="/topics//Wireless_Fidelity">Wi-Fi</a>, but they can't stay overnight. The stations open Saturday from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., and will operate indefinitely, town officials said. 
 Huntington Town Supervisor <a href="/topics//Frank_Petrone">Frank Petrone</a> announced a partnership with area religious and social service organizations to offer facilities where residents can go for heat, including Central Presbyterian Church, Temple Beth El, St. Hugh of Lincoln Roman Catholic Church, Light of Salvation Church, Dix Hills Ice Rink and Huntington YMCA. 
 Joy Gilbert, 36, of <a href="/topics//Seaford,_NY">Seaford</a>, said she and her family are huddling together to stay warm at night, dressed in hats, gloves and winter coats. Their house was knocked off its foundation during the storm, and both their cars were destroyed. On Friday, the family was running out of options. 
 "This is the breaking point," she said, taking a few sandwiches from a <a href="/topics//Seaford,_NY">Seaford</a> feeding station to get her children -- ages 8, 10, 11 and 15 -- through the night. "We had a generator, but it's out of <a href="/topics//GAS_(designer)">gas</a>. And we have no cars to get <a href="/topics//GAS_(designer)">gas</a>." 
 At a news conference at the station, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) said she's working to have fliers with shelter locations distributed to all neighborhoods. 
 Maureen Fleming, of Commack, came to the H. Lee Dennison Building in <a href="/topics//Hauppauge,_NY">Hauppauge</a> with her elderly aunt, Geraldine Collins. Fleming said she's spent days looking for kerosene or a generator to no avail. 
 "You could end up with pneumonia if it keeps up too long," Collins said. 
 Marietta George, of Stony Brook, and her 84-year-old mother, Ann, also have been living without power. 
 "It's getting colder and colder," Ann George said, bundled in a hooded jacket as she waited to pick up free meals in <a href="/topics//Hauppauge,_NY">Hauppauge</a>. "It's becoming unbearable." 
 If power isn't restored soon, she may have to leave Long Island and stay with her son in Massachusetts. "I don't want to freeze to death," she said. 
 Southampton Hospital has gotten several calls from seniors seeking shelter because of the cold, said spokeswoman Pat Kiernan. The hospital referred them to the closest senior center. 
 Terry Lynam, spokesman for North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System, said people are starting to come to emergency rooms at many of the systems' 16 hospitals with colds and other respiratory complaints associated with no heat in their homes. 
 "We're starting to feel effects of the cold, literally," he said.

Weather

LICOLD03

Concern for elderly, disabled as temps drop

Chilly temperatures could turn "life-threatening" for residents -- particularly the elderly and the frail -- as they are forced to brave the cold without any heat, officials said Thursday. 
 They're asking the Red Cross and local municipalities across <a href="/topics//Long_Island,_NY">Long Island</a> to open warming centers and are pressing LIPA to restore power more quickly. 
 They're also concerned that many residents, cut off from television, radio and cellphones, have no way of finding out where to go for help. 
 <a href="/topics//Nassau_County,_NY">Nassau</a> Legis. Dave Denenberg (D-<a href="/topics//Merrick,_NY">Merrick</a>), who didn't have power Thursday, said options are slim for those without heat. 
 In <a href="/topics//North_Hempstead,_NY">North Hempstead</a>, officials will encourage senior citizens to seek shelter in one of seven locations this weekend. 
 "We want to make sure they at least have the information available to go to a shelter," said Sid Nathan, town spokesman. "That's our biggest concern." 
 A spokesman for the <a href="/topics//National_Weather_Service">National Weather Service</a> said nighttime temperatures will dip into the mid-30s this weekend. 
 <a href="/topics//Suffolk_County,_NY">Suffolk</a> Legis. DuWayne Gregory (D-<a href="/topics//Amityville,_NY">Amityville</a>) said residents should stay with family or friends, adding that there are currently no plans to go door to door to check on the vulnerable. 
 The <a href="/topics//Lindenhurst,_NY">Lindenhurst</a> library will be open for residents who want to warm up or charge their phones, and <a href="/topics//Lindenhurst,_NY">Lindenhurst</a> High School will also serve as a warming center, said <a href="/topics//Suffolk_County,_NY">Suffolk</a> Legis. Wayne Horsley (D-<a href="/topics//Babylon,_NY">Babylon</a>). 
 Eric Klinenberg, professor of sociology at <a href="/topics//New_York_University">New York University</a>, wrote a book about a 1995 heat wave in Chicago that killed more than 700 people. The old and poor made up 70 percent of the deaths, he said. Klinenberg said social isolation and frequency of extreme weather events could be a fatal combination. He's concerned about area residents will fare in the storm's aftermath. 
 "I'm very worried about what's happening to old and frail people who are alone and isolated -- out of sight while the rest of the city moves on," he said, speaking of Sandy's aftermath. "If you have a family member, friend or neighbor who is alone and vulnerable, you need to check in on them. If you are far away, you need to call the authorities and demand someone does." 
 Chicago has improved its outreach since then, working with health care providers, senior centers and meal delivery groups to create lists of the vulnerable who asked to be looked in on in an emergency, he said.

LIWEAT02

As cold looms, those without power at risk

Because of storm water runoff that might contain bacteria and pathogens, shellfish harvesting in areas of <a href="/topics//Suffolk_County,_NY">Suffolk</a> and Nassau counties has been prohibited at least through Nov. 5, according to the state Department of Environmental Conservation.
The ban went into effect Monday as a precautionary measure, according to a release, with the approach of superstorm Sandy, which ended up thrashing Long Island. 
The shellfishing areas will be reopened based on the results of water quality testing samples, the DEC said.
The ban does not include certified harvesting areas in "Long Island Sound, Block Island Sound, Gardiners Bay and the Atlantic Ocean that are minimally affected by storm water runoff," according to a release. 
Following are areas where shellfishing is temporally banned, areas that also can be seen on a map at the DEC website, www.dec.ny.gov/outdoor/7765.html
 Towns of <a href="/topics//Hempstead,_NY">Hempstead</a> and <a href="/topics//Oyster_Bay,_NY">Oyster Bay</a> (South Shore): All of Hempstead Bay, East Bay and South Oyster Bay and their tributaries.
 Town of North Hempstead: All of <a href="/topics//Hempstead_Harbor,_NY">Hempstead Harbor</a> south of a line from Prospect Point to <a href="/topics//Matinecock,_NY">Matinecock</a> Point.
 Town of Oyster Bay (North Shore): All of Oyster Bay Harbor, all of <a href="/topics//Cold_Spring_Harbor,_NY">Cold Spring Harbor</a> south of a line from <a href="/topics//Rocky_Point,_NY">Rocky Point</a> (<a href="/topics//Centre_Island,_NY">Centre Island</a>) to Whitewood Point on Lloyd Neck (Town of Huntington); and all of Hempstead Harbor south of a line from Prospect Point to Matinecock Point.
 Towns of Babylon and Islip: All of <a href="/topics//Great_South_Bay,_NY">Great South Bay</a> and its tributaries.
 Town of <a href="/topics//Brookhaven,_NY">Brookhaven</a> (South Shore): All of Great South Bay, including Nicoll Bay, Patchogue Bay, Bellport Bay and their tributaries; and, all of Narrow Bay, all of <a href="/topics//Moriches_Bay,_NY">Moriches Bay</a> and their tributaries.
 Town of Brookhaven (North Shore): All of Stony Brook Harbor, Port Jefferson Harbor and Mount Sinai Harbor.
 Town of Huntington: All of Northport Bay, Duck Island Harbor, Centerport Harbor, Lloyd Harbor; and, all of Huntington Bay south of a line extending from Lloyd Point to Eatons Neck; and, all of Cold Spring Harbor south of a line extending from Rocky Point, on Centre Island (Town of Oyster Bay), to Whitewood Point on Lloyd Neck.
 Town of Smithtown: All of Stony Brook Harbor and its tributaries.
 Town of Riverhead: All of <a href="/topics//Flanders,_NY">Flanders</a> Bay and its tributaries.
 Town of Southampton: All of Flanders Bay, Great <a href="/topics//Peconic_Bay,_NY">Peconic Bay</a>, Little Peconic Bay, North Sea Harbor, Noyack Bay, Sag Harbor <a href="/topics//Shelter_Island,_NY">Shelter Island</a> Sound, Moriches Bay, Quantuck Bay, Quantuck Canal and Shinnecock Bay and all other creeks, bays, harbors, coves and tributaries within the Town of Southampton.
 Town of East Hampton: All of Sag Harbor, Northwest Harbor, Three Mile Harbor, Accabonac Harbor, Napeague Bay, Napeague Harbor, Lake Montauk and all other creeks, bay, harbors, coves and tributaries within the Town of East Hampton.
 Town of Shelter Island: All of Shelter Island Sound, Coecles Harbor, Dering Harbor, West Neck Harbor, Northwest Harbor and all other creeks, bay, harbors, coves and tributaries within the Town of Shelter Island.
 Town of <a href="/topics//Southold,_NY">Southold</a>: All of Great Peconic Bay, Little Peconic Bay, Southold Bay, Cutchogue Harbor, Pipes Cove, Orient Harbor, Hallock (Long Beach) Bay, Shelter Island Sound; Hay Harbor, West Harbor and East Harbor on Fishers Island; and all other creeks, bay, harbors, coves and tributaries within the Town of Southold.

LISHEL02

Shellfishing prohibited in many LI waters

Commuters returned to the <a href="/topics//Long_Island_Rail_Road">Long Island Rail Road</a> Thursday and two more lines will open with service to Penn Station Friday. 
 The Babylon and Huntington lines will open Friday morning with hourly service, Gov. <a href="/topics//Andrew_Cuomo">Andrew M. Cuomo</a> announced Thursday night. 
 "The progress is happening literally on an hourly basis and is amazingly advanced for what we anticipated," Cuomo said about the restoration of public transit operations after superstorm Sandy shut systems down. 
 The railroad took its first steps toward service on <a href="/topics//Long_Island,_NY">Long Island</a> with hourly service Thursday between <a href="/topics//Ronkonkoma,_NY">Ronkonkoma</a> and Penn Station, <a href="/topics//Great_Neck,_NY">Great Neck</a> and Penn Station, and Jamaica and Atlantic Terminal. Fares have been waived through Friday. 
 The LIRR Thursday carried about 10,000 people into Penn Station between 6 and 10 a.m. -- just 12 percent of its typical morning commuter ridership. 
 Even crowded, skeletal service Thursday was an attractive alternative to the gridlocked roads into and out of New York City. 
 "It feels good," said Fernando Henriquez of <a href="/topics//Port_Washington,_NY">Port Washington</a> as he waited at the busy <a href="/topics//Great_Neck,_NY">Great Neck</a> station for a Manhattan-bound train. "After all that happened, it feels good that we are back in business." 
 The <a href="/topics//Metropolitan_Transportation_Authority">Metropolitan Transportation Authority</a> suspended service on all 11 LIRR lines, city subways and Metro-North Railroad on Sunday in advance of superstorm Sandy, which hit the metropolitan area Monday night. 
 The storm dropped more than 140 trees on LIRR tracks, took down signal lines, and knocked out power to electrified third rails, communications systems, and crossing gates. 
 Railroad officials have said the agency is focusing its efforts on restoring some service to its busiest lines -- <a href="/topics//Port_Washington,_NY">Port Washington</a>, <a href="/topics//Ronkonkoma,_NY">Ronkonkoma</a>, Babylon and Huntington. Other branches, including the devastated <a href="/topics//Long_Beach,_NY">Long Beach</a> line, could take longer to recover. 
 Officials asked customers for their cooperation during the work toward restoring service, urging them to stagger their trips to minimize crowding. 
 "We did have some trains that were standing room, but from what I've heard, we didn't leave anybody behind that wanted to get on a train," LIRR Customer Service Vice President Joe Calderone said Thursday. 
 "It was better than usual, actually," Kimani Rabess, 31, of <a href="/topics//Central_Islip,_NY">Central Islip</a>, said of her ride from <a href="/topics//Ronkonkoma,_NY">Ronkonkoma</a> to her real estate job in Manhattan. "I think people don't have electricity, so they didn't know." 
 Other transit agencies also began returning to normal service after being knocked down by Sandy. <a href="/topics//Nassau_County,_NY">Nassau</a>'s NICE Bus system was running about 98 percent of its buses, with three routes still out Thursday because of unsafe road conditions, officials said. NICE also is not charging fares through Friday. 
 <a href="/topics//Suffolk_County,_NY">Suffolk</a> County Transit Thursday ran its first buses since Thursday. <a href="/topics//Suffolk_County,_NY">Suffolk</a> Department of Public Works Commissioner Gilbert Anderson said riders could expect to encounter some delays as buses navigate some roads without traffic signals. 
 Anderson said that among the buses back up and running Thursday was a <a href="/topics//Suffolk_County,_NY">Suffolk</a>-to-Manhattan shuttle bus that carried just one passenger. 
 "By the time it got into the city, he found out his office was closed," Anderson said. "So we drove him all the way back." 
 Commuters who tried to drive into the city found traffic jams on the <a href="/topics//Long_Island_Expressway,_NY">Long Island Expressway</a> stretched all the way to the Cross Island Parkway at the <a href="/topics//Nassau_County,_NY">Nassau</a>-Queens border. Those attempting to cross the RFK-<a href="/topics//Triborough_Bridge,_NY">Triborough Bridge</a> found traffic was snarled on the Grand Central back to at least Citi Field. 
 New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg had banned vehicles with fewer than three people from crossing all East River Bridges into Manhattan. The restriction was erroneously put in place yesterday morning on the George Washington Bridge, further slowing traffic. 
 The ban into Manhattan, similar to the HOV restrictions for the 1999 transit strike and then after Sept., 11, 2001, and in place for other emergencies, was announced Wednesday. 
 Some <a href="/topics//Long_Island,_NY">Long Island</a>ers without electricity said they had no idea the ban was in effect -- or what restrictions were being enforced -- until they were caught in traffic jams. 
 "You have to count on things being like this," Steve Phillips, an Otis Elevator repairman, said as he and a co-worker stood on the <a href="/topics//Long_Island_Rail_Road">Long Island Rail Road</a> platform in <a href="/topics//Ronkonkoma,_NY">Ronkonkoma</a> -- waiting for a train after calling off their morning drive to the city. 
 With SCOTT EIDLER and MACKENZIE ISSLER

LILIRR02

Cuomo: LIRR's Babylon, Huntington lines to run Friday

nyTRANjcw

Randi Shubin Dresner, president and chief executive of Island Harvest in <a href="/topics//Mineola,_NY">Mineola</a>, said her agency opened two of its warehouses today for the first time after the storm, and is ready to distribute food. 
 It had already given thousands of pounds of products to the <a href="/topics//American_Red_Cross">American Red Cross</a> on Monday, and nine more truckloads of water, energy drinks, protein bars and other items are expected arrive on Friday from <a href="/topics//Feeding_America">Feeding America</a>, a nationwide hunger-relief organization. 
 Dresner said in addition to distributing food to the Red Cross and food pantries, her agency plans to bring trucks to the hardest-hit areas on <a href="/topics//Long_Island,_NY">Long Island</a> and distribute food directly to people there. 
 Island Harvest is taking donations from the public — especially donations of protein products in cans, personal-care items, and baby items. 
 For more information call 631-873-4775.

HLISLAND31

Island Harvest back in business

island-harvest-cropped-opinion

Superstorm Sandy is likely to hit <a href="/topics//Long_Island,_NY">Long Island</a>'s economy harder than any natural disaster in the region's history, experts said Tuesday. 
 The storm could wreak $1 billion or more in short-term harm throughout <a href="/topics//Nassau_County,_NY">Nassau</a> and <a href="/topics//Suffolk_County,_NY">Suffolk</a> counties in property damage and lost business and wages, said Irwin Kellner, <a href="/topics//Port_Washington,_NY">Port Washington</a>-based chief economist for financial news organization MarketWatch. 
 The total economic impact of the storm throughout its path, from <a href="/topics//North_Carolina">North Carolina</a> through <a href="/topics//Rhode_Island">Rhode Island</a>, could add up to $10 billion to $20 billion, according to preliminary estimates from Eqecat Inc., a catastrophic-risk modeling firm in Oakland, Calif. Another forecaster, <a href="/topics//IHS_Inc.">IHS</a> <a href="/topics//Global_Insight">Global Insight</a>, estimated costs of $30 billion to $50 billion. The broad range indicates these estimates are very early and not definitive. 
 In <a href="/topics//Nassau_County,_NY">Nassau</a> and <a href="/topics//Suffolk_County,_NY">Suffolk</a> counties, more than 60,000 homes valued at almost $26.6 billion were at risk of storm surge damage from a storm like Sandy, reported CoreLogic, a data and analytics firm in California. 
 In addition to property damage, Kellner said, "stores and other businesses will lose business, and in the case of a restaurant, for example, you are not able to make up the meals that you didn't serve." 
 Another analyst said the <a href="/topics//Long_Island,_NY">Long Island</a> impact could be greater. Fixing the shorelines is likely to cost roughly $1 billion, and repairing cars and homes could add another $1 billion, said Martin Cantor, director of the <a href="/topics//Long_Island,_NY">Long Island</a> Center for Socio-Economic Policy, a private think tank in <a href="/topics//Melville,_NY">Melville</a>. 
 The economic impact of the devastating 1938 hurricane known as the <a href="/topics//Long_Island,_NY">Long Island</a> Express, as well as more recent storms such as last year's Tropical Storm Irene, pale in comparison, Kellner and Cantor said, even after adjusting for inflation. The 1938 storm, for instance, hit a largely agrarian region with many fewer homes and businesses. 
 "Sandy is in a class all by itself," Richard Guardino, executive dean of the Wilbur F. <a href="/topics//Breslin_Center">Breslin Center</a> for Real Estate Studies at <a href="/topics//Hofstra_University">Hofstra University</a>, said in an email. 
 There may be a silver lining to the storm over the coming year. The <a href="/topics//Federal_Emergency_Management_Agency">Federal Emergency Management Agency</a> is expected to help fund some storm recovery costs, and homeowners will collect insurance payouts to cover repairs. 
 Plus, business is booming at home repair stores, and local contractors and landscapers will be hired to fix storm-scarred homes. 
 The coming flurry of activity might not only make up for the short-term financial hit, but also add another $500 million to the local economy, Kellner and Cantor said. 
 Still, "You want to be able to say we're growing for good reasons," Cantor said, "not because people are in pain." With Ted Phillips