LI's Irene home damage may be $500M-plus

Hurricane Irene could cause at least $500 million in damage to summer homes and other properties along Long Island's fragile shoreline, where many warnings about overdevelopment have gone ignored for years, the region's former master planner said.

Lee Koppelman, former executive director of the now-defunct Long Island Regional Planning Board, said there had been an estimated 15 percent increase in homes built on Fire Island and along other beachfront properties since 1985's Hurricane Gloria raked across Suffolk and Nassau counties.

"We're more vulnerable -- with more homes and people -- than ever before," said Koppelman, now a professor at Stony Brook University. "It's insane to have all these homes along the barrier beach, but that's an argument I lost."

Koppelman said his board repeatedly warned about the risk to life and property from overdevelopment along Long Island's oceanfront communities in Babylon, Islip and Brookhaven. But he said the number of summer homes along this beachfront has nearly doubled since the early 1970s -- from 2,200 to more than 5,000 today -- despite concerns after the damage caused by Hurricane Gloria and 1991's "Perfect Storm" nor'easter that wrecked many homes.

Advocates of development on Long Island are aware of the delicate balancing act in building along the water.

John Cameron, chairman of the pro-development Long Island Regional Planning Council, said residents have benefited from restaurants and other businesses along the waterfront. "If you build along the water, you're tempting the ocean. We love to be near the water, but there's a danger with it."

Overall, 387,000 homes and other developed properties -- covering a large part of Long Island's southern and eastern communities -- are at risk for serious damage from Hurricane Irene, according to Core Logic, a California-based real estate analytic firm. A spokeswoman said that the overall damage cost, if Irene hits with predicted fury, could be "in the billions, not millions."

On Friday, many compared Irene to Gloria, which left as many as 750,000 electric customers without power and caused a political storm in its wake.

More than 150,000 customers of the then-Long Island Lighting Co. were without lights six days later. Then-Gov. Mario Cuomo estimated New York's overall storm damage at $215 million -- about half of which took place in Suffolk County.

Since then, Koppelman and other planning experts have warned about the economic risks of continued development along Long Island's waterfront, some of which had been restored with taxpayer-funded sand and beach restoration projects after earlier storms.

Seth Forman, chief planner of the regional planning council, said much of Long Island's tourism and recreational industries were tied to summertime crowds who flock to the oceanfront each summer. The economic benefits from waterfront activities are part of a "balancing act" with potential financial risks that such buildings could be destroyed in a storm, Forman said. He agreed that development along the oceanfront has increased since Gloria's devastation.

"There's a big market for these properties and a lot of money to be made," Forman said. Depending on the severity of Irene, Forman said the damage cost could be considerable. He estimated that the 380,000 properties within Long Island's flood-zone region have a total value of $130 billion and that much of it could be at risk if Long Island is hit by a Category 1 hurricane.

"If it's a big one, it's a multibillion-dollar cost and would have a phenomenal impact," hurting Long Island's economy, said Cameron, planning council chairman, a private-public group. He said local and state budgets would be strained to deal with such a disaster, and that many homeowners without flood insurance might have to pay for repairs.