LIers begin cleanup after Irene departs

For thousands of Long Islanders, Tropical Storm Irene's fury was measured Sunday in the gritty reality of flooded basements, darkened homes and neighborhood streets littered with tree limbs.

Across the Island, the sound of generators and pumps filled the air as residents and business owners began the arduous task of cleaning up.

But there was also a collective sense of relief as the powerful storm swept past. The mantra for many: It could have been so much worse.

In Long Beach, Chris and Jenn Pearce, owners of the Sweet Retreat ice cream parlor, were expecting the worst Sunday when they returned to check on their business.

The couple, who live in Oceanside, thought the plate-glass windows would be shattered by high winds -- local stores had run out of protective plywood. They also figured their frozen inventory would be lost, spoiled by a power outage.

Sweet Retreat is on West Beech Street, two blocks from the ocean, but the Pearces found the electricity on. The windows and front awning were intact. "We're very relieved," Chris Pearce said.

By afternoon, Long Beach residents were out again, walking dogs and washing sand and sea foam from sidewalks and cars.

City Manager Charles T. Theofan said the city had been spared what many feared would be a repeat of the 1938 hurricane that devastated parts of Long Island.

Still, Long Beach wasn't unscathed. At one point, the beach itself was gone -- buried under floodwaters. At nightfall, trees were still down all over the city and residents were pumping out water.

Freeport

In Freeport, Sunday afternoon brought signs of normalcy. Children tossed a baseball on a front lawn. Teens on bicycles pedaled down the street.

But the kids with the ball played next to a property littered with downed tree limbs, and the teens were sloshing their way down one of the community's many flooded streets.

Hours after Irene, parking lots for motels and marinas resembled small lakes. Many businesses were without power. Some intersections were buried under several feet of water, and by late afternoon work crews hadn't reached them all. Service had been restored to most of the 4,000 homes that had lost power.

After a truck sped through the flooded intersection near his home, sending a wave onto his property, Ollie Carman, 62, became a traffic cop. He stood one block north of the mess at Cedar Street and South Long Beach Avenue, and stuck both arms out wide, diverting drivers. "I'm just protecting my house," he said, noting that the crawl space and detached garage had flooded.

About a year ago, Lina Bonnen moved her family from Flushing to Freeport, to a home along Hudson Avenue Canal. Speaking from her flooded home, she was asked if the waterfront location was worth the risk. "That's a tough one," Bonnen, 35, said with a grin. "I don't know, but we love boating and everything else about the water."

Mastic Beach

Floodwaters coursed through the streets of Mastic Beach, damaging homes closest to the waterfront, before most residents woke up Sunday.

Most people in Bob DeBona's neighborhood evacuated. He stayed in his home on Elm Street, a few blocks from the water. At 6 a.m., there were 2 feet of water in the street.

He ventured out to one of the local marinas and got more bad news. "The boats were bouncing all over the place," said DeBona, 65, president of the Mastic Beach Property Owners Association.

John Reilly left his waterfront home on Riviera Road before the storm, spending Saturday night with his family at his in-laws' in East Islip. By early Sunday, the street had become a debris-strewn river. A chunk of a neighbor's boat dock floated past Reilly's home. So did a piece of someone's roof. Power was out throughout the neighborhood.

By afternoon, though, Reilly, 40, was relieved. The 48 sandbags he piled in front of his house, 8 feet above sea level, hadn't been needed.

Down the street, longtime resident Sam Tletenik didn't have to regret his decision to stay home.

"It wasn't that bad," he said. "My house is on pilings, so I was sort of rocked to sleep last night."

AsharokenCarole and Matt Casamassima sat in their SUV, nervously awaiting their chance to go home.

Like dozens of residents who evacuated Asharoken and neighboring Eatons Neck, the couple tried to return after the storm, only to find that floodwaters blocked the way. The communities are accessible only by Asharoken Avenue, a causeway between Northport Bay and the Long Island Sound. "We're anxious to get down there, but they've got to do what they've got to do," Matt Casamassima said.

Asharoken Avenue saw flooding. At its eastern edge, the tide crept over a beach and through a parking lot to form ponds in the road. Farther west, waves splashed over a seawall and left parts of the road damaged. By afternoon, the water had receded, but village officials were still assessing the safety of the road.

Ron Luken, another resident eager to get home and check for any damage, paced in the parking lot of Asharoken Village Hall. "It's easy to evacuate but not so easy to return," Luken, 65, said.

Relief came a couple of hours later, at 5:40 p.m. The road finally reopened.

Bayville

As daylight waned Sunday and floodwater slowly drained from the streets bordering his house, Ron Taylor watched as a generator and pump dropped off by a friend emptied the 42 inches of water that had flowed into his basement and wood shop.

Taylor took it all in stride.

The boater has lived 52 years in the Bayville Avenue house built in 1919 by his grandfather and figures storm damage is the price paid for living in a waterfront community. "My family has lived here since the 1850s, and I don't know anything else," he said.

Most Bayville residents lost power early Sunday. Then came the flooding. By noon, residents were using rowboats, kayaks and surfboards to navigate a stretch of Bayville Avenue where water pooled thigh-deep.

"It was worse in '92," said one resident, Barbara Tucker, referring to a particularly damaging nor'easter. She stood barefoot in her Madison Avenue driveway, calf-deep in floodwater. "But this was pretty bad anyhow," she said, surveying her house. "It is an island."