Remembering 1960's Hurricane Donna

Sept. 12: Hurricane Donna hits LI

Teacher Louise Knopp reads to her first-grade class at the Woodmere Elementary School as Hurricane Donna rages on Sept. 12, 1960. The children were kept in school until the storm subsided.

Lou Gerard, register clerk at the Garden City Hotel, signs in a guest, Henry Lehne, by candlelight after the storm knocked out power.

Hip deep in water, a man wades through the Jones Beach parking lot behind the administration building as a group pushes a car caught up in the flash flood.

A young man floats a toy boat along Williamson Avenue in East Rockway.

A stranded family waits for a rowboat to evacuate them from their flooded home on Williamson Avenue in East Rockaway.

This apprehensive dog is looking for a dry way out as the rising tide reaches his East Rockaway doorstep.

Another high-tide street scene in East Rockaway.

False Channel Island in Merrick Bay is completely underwater from high tides and rains.

Sept. 13: The aftermath

Furniture sits at an odd angle on the terrace of a Centerport restaurant, which was partly washed out from underneath.

Three boys look at a spot where a pond in Centerport overflowed.

John Idler of Huntington stands atop a footing where the dock that floated away had been before the storm on West Shore Road in Huntington.

On Oak Beach, the water left by the storm outside homes gave a new meaning to the term waterfront property.

Laurelton Road in Long Beach is strewn with debris from what had been a hot dog and soda stand.

Here's the destroyed hot dog and soda stand under the boardwalk on Laurelton Road.

Hurricane Donna tossed boats across Shore Road in East Setauket. Here, In the aftermath of the storm, a cruiser is removed from the center of the road.

Stephen Jordan, 13, and David Jordan, 3, of Greenlawn look at a sailboat that had been deposited on top of Northport Dock when water from Hurricane Donna rose above the dock and into the parking lot.

Ross Spinney looks for his Buick among the trees that crashed during Hurricane Donna on High Street in Port Jefferson.

The ferry Fire Island Belle returns to Fire Island from Bay Shore with a full boat of passengers after the storm.

From the sky

An aerial view of the damage done to a motel on the shore directly south of the village of Southampton.

A portion of Westhampton Beach where high tides and strong winds from Hurricane Donna cut a broad breakthrough between the ocean and bay.

In Montauk Point, the hurricane tore away part of  a roof.