The signs of Sandy are all around us, and we must heed them

I see the holes in the sky.

That's what I call them, the spots where the treetops used to be.

You'd look up and see the canopy of trees, a lush green carpet outlined against what is in your mind's eye a brilliant blue sky. And now the carpet has lots of holes where the trees are gone. And now you see a lot more of the sky, and a lot more of the power lines.

It's one of the many legacies of Superstorm Sandy, one of the subtly disquieting signs of the trauma inflicted on Long Island 10 years ago.

We all have our own signs, of course, our own markers, our own experiences from Oct. 29, 2012, that lurk in some corner of our brains until they surface and bring the discomfort with them.

The external markers, like the missing trees, some felled by Sandy and others later by nervous homeowners, are all around us. They include the homes — the ones that were elevated and the ones that were not, the ones that still sit empty, and especially the ones that were razed and never replaced, their empty lots quietly haunting. There are precious items swept away and never replaced, and battered mementos plucked from the wreckage.

There are internal markers as well, the ones now lodged only in our minds: the water lines some still envision on their walls, the sound of that wind, the despair on ensuing days over how much was lost and how difficult it would be to get back to some kind of normal, the throaty growl of generators reverberating through neighborhoods.

Fortunately, time is a balm. It lets us process trauma, and take the physical steps needed to restore our lives. Time is not a cure, however. It rarely is. So as we rebuild bit by bit, we're able to push those memories further and further back, but they're never quite gone, not so instantly available but never truly gone.

And that's OK. Because it's healthy to remember the storm's wrath — not to dwell on it and become consumed by it, not to become complacent as recollections recede, but to remember Sandy and let those memories spur us to prepare for the storms to come.

And that's where I worry. Because the preparation, as much as there has been to this point, has not been enough. Too much of the necessary work is not completed or even started, too many important questions not confronted.

Storm mitigation experts know this. So do government officials, if they're being honest. Another Sandy would be another grievous harm, perhaps sparing some whose defenses have been bolstered but slamming others even harder. And the next Sandy likely will be a worse Sandy, given what we've seen with other storms in other places boosted by higher temperatures, warmer oceans, and rising sea levels. These monsters have become only more intense and they travel even more slowly, giving them more time to wreak havoc and drop ever-larger amounts of rain.

Sooner or later, our beautiful Island will again be savaged and anyone who was here for Sandy will begin to experience what we see some Floridians grappling with right now in the wake of Hurricane Ian — the percussive shock of repeated disaster, almost like PTSD. When that happens, the disbelief is deeper, the despair stronger, the willingness to rebuild often weaker.

But it might be that the next Sandy forces us — really forces us — to consider the questions we have been avoiding about where, and how, we live.

There are signs all around us. It's time we paid them attention.

Columnist Michael Dobie's opinions are his own.

By Michael Dobie

michael.dobie1@newsday.commwdobie

Michael Dobie is a retired member of the Newsday editorial board.