Northern Suffolk cleans up, takes stock of possible repairs, restoration after extreme rainfall

Suffolk took stock Wednesday of the destruction left by Sunday's extreme rainfall, as the reality of the sudden and extensive damage to homes, roads, businesses and even libraries in the northern part of the county became all too clear.

County officials dispatched four teams from Rocky Point to Kings Park to knock on doors and assess damage, Suffolk County Fire, Rescue and Emergency Services Commissioner Rudy Sunderman said.

As of Wednesday, 1,700 residents had made a property damage report through the county's online portals, he said. So far, 21 homes were determined to have major damage, 143 had minor damage and 30 were classified as affected.

The storm, which brought up to 9.4 inches of rain, took out roads, drained ponds, flooded the Smithtown Library, washed out sections of houses and shopping centers, closed beaches, and stunned residents and business owners who now must cope with the aftermath.

The county wants homeowners to continue reporting damage through the portal on suffolkcountyny.gov. Tallying the destruction will help the county possibly become eligible for state and federal assistance.

Sunderman urged property owners to take photos, create a detailed list of damaged structures and items, and keep records of all correspondence with insurance companies.

“We are going to need to know the value of what you lost,” he said.

The financial threshold for damage that qualifies Suffolk County for aid from the Federal Emergency Management Agency is $37 million. Gov. Kathy Hochul said a monetary assessment is underway.

In a letter to FEMA's administrator on Tuesday, U.S. Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, both Democrats from New York, urged the agency to provide rapid assistance. Schumer’s office also said officials are talking to the U.S. Army Corps about flood-related repairs.

The scope of the damage became more apparent Wednesday as cleanup crews tackled hard-hit areas.

Business owners were at their closed shops in the Bonwit Village Shopping Center in Commack picking up the pieces.

Eleven tenants’ units sustained severe damage after a storm basin behind the shopping center overflowed, causing water to rise to 4 feet inside the Vanderbilt Motor Parkway building from Monday night into early Tuesday morning, said Anastasia Tsunis, who co-owns the shopping center with her family.

“Your heart bleeds. … It’s just devastating, you know, for the mom-and-pop businesses,” Tsunis said through tears as her voiced cracked.

The New York State Department of Transportation said Tuesday that the storm basin belonged to Suffolk, but the county insisted Wednesday that the storm basin, located south of the Northern State Parkway, belonged to the state.

In a statement, the NYSDOT said later Wednesday it was investigating the flooding and "determining if the NYSDOT recharge basin is functioning as designed and an analysis of the drainage watershed area contributing to the recharge basin."

The Bonwit Village tenants don’t have flood insurance because the 19,000-square-foot shopping center isn’t in a flood zone, which has caused panic over the potential costs to repair their stores, Tsunis said.

The stores’ owners are hoping to qualify for state or federal grants to rebuild.

One of the tenants, Dortoni Bakery Co., will have to rebuild its store and replace all the equipment, including the display cases, said Daniele Messina, who co-owns the business with his family.

“It’s just everything. Everything was affected. … The equipment is broken,” said Messina, who said it will cost at least $200,000 to rebuild the bakery and replace the equipment.

Founded in 1976, Dortoni Bakery has five locations, but only the Commack shop, which opened five years ago, was damaged by the storm, he said.

Also in the shopping center is Christopher Street Salon, a more-than-40-year-old shop that underwent a $200,000 renovation in early 2020 before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, said Marina Shalamov, who bought the shop eight years ago.

Now, the hair salon is a damp mess that will have to be gutted, since everything from the six computers to the furniture is ruined, she said. Even the wood-paneled floors popped out under the weight of the water, she said.

“I never saw something like that. It’s unbelievable. I cannot sleep over two nights,” she said.

In Rocky Point, dumpsters filled with broken furniture, ruined Christmas decorations, damaged family photos and more were outside the homes of Hagerman Landing Road on Wednesday.

Residents there ripped Sheetrock off waterlogged walls and waited for tow companies to collect their totaled vehicles after floodwaters up to 8 feet flowed through about five properties.

The road is a natural drainage point for the surrounding area, and the conduits that typically would have allowed rainwater to flow to nearby Long Island Sound became overwhelmed with debris, Brookhaven Town Highway Superintendent Dan Losquadro said.

The storm also destroyed a section of Harbor Road and caused the failure of the dam and draining of Mill Pond in Stony Brook. The floodwaters sent chunks of asphalt down the embankment and toward the water, blocking access to cars and stranding some residents.

"We've just been waiting for information from authorities. It's going on about three days and we can’t get out," said Daniel Kinney, who has lived next to the pond for the past 25 years. "What’s worse — nothing can come in, with no repairs and with winter coming, no oil or mail."

All other county roads, state highways and state Route 25A, which had a stretch that was closed due to storm damage, are now open, officials said.

But repair and restoration of the road, dam and pond at the Stony Brook Grist Mill may take years to complete and cost millions of dollars, civil engineers said Wednesday.

Michael Shenoda, an assistant professor of civil engineering technology at Farmingdale State College, said several complicating factors means the restoration could take four to five years and cost more than $10 million, possibly up to $20 million.

“There is a lot of wildlife, a lot of environmental concern,” he said. “Each are going to have to be studied on their own to make sure whatever they construct meets the needs of all three of those things and make sure that one doesn’t negatively impact the others.”

Wei Li, an assistant professor at Stony Brook University’s College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, said the multiple mudslides near the dam will complicate the restoration project.

"You have to first stabilize the soil over there before you start reconstructing the dam," he said. 

Stony Brook University officials said Wednesday that they are assessing how many students have been displaced from the two storm-damaged dorms — Ammann and Gray — how long those residence halls will remain out of operation, and how many students will have to be in triple rooms.

The same halls flooded in 2021 during Hurricane Ida, and several mitigation efforts — including increased stormwater drainage, pumps to relieve pressure on an adjoining drainage system and a new trench system — had been put in place since, said university spokeswoman Kelly Drossel.

"The reality is, this storm was much worse than expected for everyone. Without the proactive emergency management plans we have in place, and immediate response, this could have been much worse," she said.

Classes are expected to start on schedule Monday.

Meanwhile, business was booming for home cleanup and restoration companies that are helping to clean out damaged houses.

“Calls have been coming in nonstop since the rain at 1 o’clock in the morning Monday,” said Peter D’Allessandro, owner of Bohemia-based Disaster Cleanup Services Inc. “It hasn’t stopped ringing.”

His company received 75 to 100 calls between early Monday and Wednesday, he said, calling it “way off the charts.” It will be days or weeks before he can get to all the jobs, he said.

Most of the calls are coming from the Smithtown, Stony Brook and Setauket areas, he said.

D’Allessandro said he has never seen anything like this on the North Shore in the nearly 20 years he has been in the business. The only comparison was Superstorm Sandy in 2012, but on the South Shore.

“It’s a similar type of situation,” he said. “This is like Sandy on the North Shore.”