Long Beach, 10 years after Sandy: A more resilient city, but vulnerabilities remain

Long Beach, like most of Long Island, was not prepared for the wrath of Superstorm Sandy.

While many residents were lulled into a false sense of security from previous storms, the intense surge from the ocean met floodwaters from the bay. Nearly every building in the city was flooded. The storm left 10 feet of standing water on each side of the barrier island; it knocked out electricity, drinking water, sewage and phone service for days if not weeks. 

There were 13 deaths on Long Island as a result of Sandy, but none occurred on Long Beach. The storm affected residents of the city of about 33,000 by uprooting lives, destroying businesses and leaving locals faced with daunting rebuilds. 

A decade and more than $300 million in storm-protection projects later, including the transformation of the city’s shoreline, Long Beach now stands more guarded against storm surge, with more resilient homes on the barrier island and measures in place to reduce flooding risks.

But some vulnerabilities still exist, officials say, as the city faces a future with more frequent and violent storms.

“Is the nation actually prepared for emergencies and disasters? It’s not only a local issue, it's a national issue — and climate change is real,” said City Council Vice President Elizabeth Treston, a Democrat who spent five years rebuilding and raising her house after Sandy. “Water levels are rising and the increase of hurricanes [is] not only happening, but the severity is what is going to make the conversation more imperative.”

“The topics of discussion are going to include, should people be living on the shoreline?” she said.

A 'catastrophic event'

As Sandy turned toward Long Island and the Northeast, many residents chose to stay in Long Beach, unaware of the level of devastation the city was about to bear.

Storm surges with 17-foot waves approached from the Atlantic Ocean, destroying the iconic boardwalk and flooding nearly every building in the city. Tidal waves from the ocean quickly met flooding from the northern bay, inundating the city, knocking out power and all other forms of infrastructure.

Long Beach Public Works Commissioner Joe Febrizio said he was standing on the boardwalk on the night of Oct. 29, 2012, watching waves crash and wash away the lifeguard headquarters on the beach.

“When the storm hit, it was clearly a catastrophic event for the City of Long Beach. I realized it was getting bad and there was four feet of water across the whole city,” Febrizio said. “As the recovery efforts began, we had to figure out what we do next and it was something unparalleled and something no one in this area has ever seen before. We basically had no water, sanitation, gas or electricity on Long Beach Island. It was pretty much Armageddon.”

Previous storms never quite delivered the punch that came with Sandy. Residents weathered Tropical Storm Irene a year earlier, along with  Hurricane Gloria in 1985. That meant many Long Beach residents stayed behind when evacuation orders from the city and the governor came during Sandy.

“That was somewhat the mentality, that it could never happen here,” Febrizio said. “We went through Irene and Gloria and I think they never lived up to the hype, and with Sandy, this was exactly what they said was going to happen.”

City officials say it's unlikely that a single building in Long Beach escaped flooding. Within 15 minutes of the first tidal surge, the city was flooded. Residents tried to shovel sand out of the streets as a huge wall of water breached the southern shoreline and sand dunes, Febrizio said.

In the aftermath of the storm, residents described their neighbors emptying homes of flooded debris into the streets, which were lined with sand, garbage and damaged belongings. Some residents described cars standing upright or buried in sand after they were overturned by floodwaters.

More than 1,000 homes across the city were deemed “substantially damaged” by FEMA. Many of the apartment towers on the boardwalk were rendered uninhabitable from seawater and sand that washed into the lower floors.

Many Long Beach residents were forced out of their homes for months, if not years, and some have just finished rebuilding a decade later. 

The storm cut off power to the city for about two weeks and eliminated backup power for the first few days to the city’s wastewater treatment plant. Residents had no tap drinking water for about three weeks.

Community comes together

Colette Lee Morales, 40, was forced out of her boardwalk apartment and eventually had to stay in  Seaford after the first level of the building flooded. She returned to Long Beach about a month later. 

“We had never experienced anything this catastrophic. It’s like I never knew if life was going to be normal again,” Morales said. “This is my home. I learned people will always step up and rise to the occasion on Long Island and everyone wants to help each other.”

She stayed with friends and family and organized collection drives for Long Beach. She spearheaded recovery efforts to clean up trash strewed across the city. While sweeping up sand with a Merrick couple, Bill and Barbara Lewis, they discovered an Elton John record, “I’m Still Standing,” which became an anthem for the city.

Bill Lewis told Newsday that he found the 45 rpm buried in the mud on East Park Avenue on Thanksgiving 2012, while filling garbage bags with the destroyed furniture and broken toys that littered the city's streets after Sandy.

"It meant so much because Long Beach was still there after that horrible destruction from Sandy and I thought it fit the bill," he said. "It meant something that we’re New Yorkers. We’re tough as nails and they can slow us down, but they can't beat us. The storm put a hurting on us no question, but people got together and prevailed."

Long Beach’s bayfront-facing North Park neighborhood, predominantly made up of Black and Hispanic families, was flooded during the storm. Residents found refuge at the city’s MLK Center. The center itself sustained $1.2 million in damage, but was able to serve as a shelter and house supplies for residents, with assistance from FEMA and the American Red Cross.

“The community center was a place of refuge and helped so many people that were seeking help and guidance,” former chairman James Hodge said. “We had everything there: clothing, toiletries, food and hot showers. We had heat."

The MLK Center became something of "a hub" for residents, Hodge added. 

Hodge said he is just now finishing repairs to his house a decade later, after it was flooded and severely damaged. He slept in his car, on cots and with friends until his house, which sits next door to the MLK Center, was made habitable, Hodge said 

Volunteers with the Orthodox Union’s National Conference of Synagogue Youth and Habitat for Humanity helped completely reconstruct the home two years ago in a $70,000 renovation with new walls, electric wiring, plumbing and windows.

Preparing for future storms

The city has undertaken 185 storm-hardening and repair projects in the past decade and received more than $100 million from FEMA.

The rebuilding of the boardwalk stood as one of the city's first and most significant projects after the storm. FEMA later reimbursed Long Beach for $42 million. The former decaying boardwalk was rebuilt within a year, adding a concrete retaining wall and Brazilian Ipe wood to withstand tidal surges. 

The city made it a priority to restore the boardwalk after officials said it symbolized "the heart of the city."

Leaders said rebuilding the boardwalk showed that Long Beach was on its way back, welcoming residents and visitors once again to the pristine beach the city relies upon as a lifeline for its fragile economy.

“It was inconceivable. The feelings that our historic boardwalk was just about leveled,” Febrizio said. “The boardwalk was a priority and symbolic for the city. There was a hard press and push for it to be rebuilt within a year.”

Another major infrastructure project, completed in 2019: a $130 million U.S. Army Corps of Engineers shoreline protection effort that transformed the coastline from Point Lookout to Long Beach.

Many residents had resisted protection measures such as dunes on the beach before Sandy, amid fears that work would obstruct views and access or hinder surfing. But after Sandy, officials said the project got nearly unanimous support from the community.

The dunes and jetties fully funded with 2013 Sandy relief dollars from the Army Corps repaired 15 of the 22 jetties on the beach. The Army Corps also used 3.2 million cubic yards of sand to build a dune in front of the boardwalk and extend the beach 150 feet from the shoreline from Long Beach to Point Lookout.

The city has not taken responsibility for the project, citing concern over the stability of the jetties. City officials maintain that the jetties were not built with the appropriate foundation and that boulders are starting to separate and sink into the sand. The Army Corps, which says they were built property, have agreed to keep up maintenance and to inspect the project every five years.

'We're never going to be immune to it'

Other work in the city is still being completed. The city wrapped up a $10 million north shore bulkhead project to protect public property on the bayfront, but the project did not include state funding to protect homes on Reynolds Channel. The effort was funded with the Governor's Office of Storm Recovery and the city was not permitted to use the funding for private work. 

The city is still working a decade later on a separate state-funded $40 million project to erect 2,200 feet of bulkheading for the protection of critical infrastructure on the north shore bayfront, including the city’s electric substation, water treatment plant and wastewater plant. The wastewater plant is being decommissioned to pump sewage in an underwater pipeline to Bay Park and to also eliminate treated sewage being pumped into Reynolds Channel.

Officials also hope that the restoration of the bay, including tidal wetlands and marshes, will serve as a natural flood barrier.

North Park residents have seen bulkheads and storm protection projects throughout the city, but Hodge said he is concerned the eastern north bayfront remains unprotected.

"North Park was already an area that had floods and was unprotected from the bay," Hodge said. "Every part of Long Beach has been built up, but work promised for the north has not been utilized yet. I hope our community can get the attention and help that is needed, with money allotted as soon as possible. Ten years later, we're still seeking protection from the waters."

The city is also adding pump stations to protect the West End and the North Park neighborhoods near the bay and City Hall. The pump stations are designed to reduce flooding in a drainage project by diverting rain water and forcing water at high tide back into the bay. 

Some parts of the city did not return, including the 403-bed Long Beach Medical Center, which was shuttered and demolished after being flooded during Sandy. The bankrupt hospital was purchased by South Nassau Communities Hospital.

FEMA approved an alternative-use plan to allow Mount Sinai-South Nassau to put $130 million of storm-damage funding toward improvements for its main hospital in Oceanside. It opened a 911 receiving emergency room and medical specialist building at the site of the former hospital in Long Beach.

City officials said the improvements since Sandy have hardened Long Beach, raising about half the homes and improving bulkheads. But they warn that the barrier island remains vulnerable to major storms.

”I think we are much better prepared to sustain less damage, recover quicker and get back online quicker,” city spokesman John McNally said. “But there’s no stopping another Sandy. With a storm like that, we are better protected and prepared to sustain less damage. If we’re going to be hit by a hurricane, Sandy made a perfect storm for Long Beach. The beach is still going to meet the bay, and as a barrier island, we’re never going to be immune to it.”