Engineers looking at apparent storm damage to Fire Island Lighthouse

Engineers were assessing damage at the Fire Island Lighthouse on Monday that may have been caused by storms last week. 

The damage was discovered Saturday morning, said Fire Island Lighthouse Preservation Society executive director Tony Femminella. The iconic structure is structurally sound, but part of the northeast exterior’s shotcrete, or sprayed concrete, separated and slid down the tower after Friday night’s high winds and heavy rains, he said. 

The lighthouse, which has been struck by lightning before, has never sustained such damage, the executive director said, and engineers were still looking at whether it was caused by the bad weather. 

Photos posted on the lighthouse’s Facebook page show a large sheet of the shotcrete, which Femminella said is held by masonry pins, fell a few feet toward the base of the tower. 

Fire Island National Seashore Superintendent Alexcy Romero described the shotcrete as the “outer shroud protecting the inner core of the lighthouse structure itself.”

“This is more cosmetic than it is structural,” Romero said. 

The lighthouse, made up of 800,000 bricks, was coated in the shotcrete in 1986 as a safeguard against salty air and winds, which were damaging the bricks.

The park service had been monitoring the shotcrete weekly for several years to determine the longevity of the concrete, which Romero said the park service anticipated repairing, even before Friday night’s damage. The damaged section had already been closed for three months, as the park service was "anticipating this failure to occur," Romero said. 

“It’s almost like peeling paint,” Romero said. “It’s like you see peeling paint on a house and you get these gusty winds and it starts to peel off a bit more rapidly.” 

Completed in 1858 near the site of its 1826 predecessor, the light from the current 168-foot Fire Island Lighthouse can be seen more than 20 miles away.

Half of the north-side terrace and boardwalks leading to the north side of the lighthouse are closed until further notice. The museum, Keepers Quarters and Lens building remain open. Tower tours typically depend on volunteer availability, but are suspended indefinitely. 

It’s unclear when the lighthouse could reopen to the public, but Femminella said once he gets the green light from engineers, he will reopen the tower. Romero said the cost and scope of repairs could be determined by engineers in the coming days. 

With Brianne Ledda

By Brinley Hineman

brinley.hineman@newsday.com

Brinley Hineman covers the Town of Hempstead and the City of Long Beach for Newsday. She previously was a reporter in Nashville, Tennessee, and is a West Virginia native.