One year after Hurricane Sandy wreaked havoc on New York City, many devastated communities are just starting to heal.
The floodwaters and weeklong power outage almost destroyed an already failing South Street Seaport — but it’s making its way back.
Meanwhile, Brooklyn really hustled to have beaches and other attractions ready for this past summer.
In Breezy Point, where more than 100 houses were leveled by fire amid the storm, residents have started rebuilding, the community but there’s still much more work to be done.
Staten Island suffered the most fatalities during the storm — and its residents are still feeling the financial and emotional strain even as they deal with the haunting memories.
Longing for home
As saws buzzed and hammers pounded behind her, Marie Lopresti stood on a plot of land in Breezy Point, counting the days until she could call it her home again.
Lopresti , 73, was forced from the Gotham Walk house she had called home for 30 years when Hurricane Sandy thundered across her corner of Queens on Oct. 29, 2012.
The widow ignored evacuation directives and tried to ride out the storm with her son — until the neighborhood started burning down around them.
They got out alive, but she remains distraught over all she lost, including photos and the American flag honoring her late husband’s military service.
“Now all those things are gone, everything that had a special memory,” Lopresti said.
The months since have been one long nightmare, a hotel here, a friend’s house there.
“I feel like a hobo, moving from one place to another,” she said. “In one year, I lived in four places.”
She hopes to have a new home by Christmas.
Lorena Mongelli
South Street lookin’ up
The South Street Seaport was already on its last legs when Hurricane Sandy hit, but today, the much-maligned tourist attraction is fighting back.
Some damaged businesses at the historic lower Manhattan site are reopening, and plans are moving forward to transform the famed seaport and Pier 17 pavilion space into a new megamall and event venue.
Amanda Byron Zink reopened her Peck Slip pet-grooming business The Salty Paw on Sept. 28.
“It felt like I had just finished running the New York City Marathon,’’ Zink said.
“It was exhilarating, but I felt a little beat up. The first day, it was like Grand Central Station. We were slammed. People who don’t even have dogs were coming in crying, saying, ‘We’re so happy you’re open!’ ”
Staffers at Fresh Salt, reopened around Christmas, said business has actually been good because they were one of the few eateries to quickly reopen.
“For a while, we were the only bar open,” said bartender Django Voris, 39. “It was a ghost town down here.”
Peter O’Connell, owner of Paris Cafe on South Street, said he just reopened Thursday.
“In some ways, we needed this regeneration,” he said. “I’m very excited about the new construction.”
Sabrina Ford
Brooklyn’s fresh clean start
Brooklyn’s waterfront communities, from Coney Island to Sheepshead Bay, were left devastated by Hurricane Sandy, but they’re back in business one year later.
For Coney Island resident Antoine Ivey, 37, it’s the little things that make him feel fortunate — like once again taking his clothes to Surf Avenue’s American Suds Laundromat, which suffered extensive flooding in the October 2012 storm. “People take it for granted that certain things are always going to be there, but Sandy showed that nothing is safe when it comes to a storm of that magnitude,” he reflected.
Patches of Coney’s 2.6-mile boardwalk, shredded by Sandy’s gusts, have been repaired including the Steeplechase Pier that re-opened on Oct. 2, costing the Parks Department nearly $20 million. And mainstays knocked out by the superstorm — including Nathan’s, Gargiulo’s Restaurant and Totonno’s pizzeria — are humming along.
Meanwhile, Sandy’s punch turned adjacent waterfront communities — Brighton Beach, Manhattan Beach and Sheepshead Bay — into post-apocalyptic landscapes.
Brighton Beach also is looking on the bright side. Pat Singer, head of the Brighton Neighborhood Association, said most of the neighborhood’s 400 flood-damaged businesses have re-opened. And 191 residents have filed reimbursement claims via the city’s “Build It Back” program.
The Army Corps of Engineers has since helped raise the sand levels along the beaches of Coney Island — from Sea Gate through Brighton Beach — as a precaution should another such storm hit.
Yet the stench of Sandy lingers for beleaguered residents in Manhattan Beach and Sheepshead Bay — who were hit with a triple whammy of rampaging ocean waters, flood waters cascading over the bay and surging raw sewage —where some still await FEMA grants and fight insurance companies for millions in home-repair reimbursements.
A massive concrete seawall along Manhattan Beach remains smashed into smithereens, preventing shorefront access to homes along the water’s edge.
Philip Messing
An empty feeling on SI
The only thing left standing on Pedro Correa’s Oakwood Beach property is a 50-foot tall tree with a tire swing that his two young children used to play on.
“That was my one fear,” Correa said while standing on the empty lot. “That the wind would knock that tree down and it would crush my house.”
Correa barely survived Hurricane Sandy after the 14-foot storm surge took his entire home into a nearby marsh. The entire stretch of land on his Kissam Avenue block has been wiped away.
One year later, the Correa family and other Staten Islanders are trying to put their lives back together with help from local relief organizations and a maze of government programs.
A number of homes, such as Correa’s, were purchased by the state at their prestorm value.
Others have not been so lucky.
Domenick Camerada met with President Obama last year when he came to tour Sandy-ravaged New Dorp Beach. A year later, Camerada is suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder while his home and the property he once rented out are still in ruins.
“He said he was gonna make it right,” Camerada said of his chat with Obama. “All he could do was give out false hope. That’s what he gave to me and the community. He was full of sh-t.”
Joe Tacopino