We’re ready

Long Beach Chief of Lifeguards Paul Gillespie said he’ll never forget the moment. He was at home watching television last Aug. 28 — NBC’s Al Roker was broadcasting live from the Allegria Hotel — when a powerful storm surge broke through a 15-foot-high berm at National Boulevard, lifted Beach Patrol Headquarters off its foundation and slammed it into the boardwalk.

“I had a hard time getting there because [the roads] were so flooded,” Gillespie said. “… We did build the mounds up before the storm, and it just ate them right up. … I thought [the headquarters] was going to get wrecked, but it stayed upright.”

That televised image became a symbol of Tropical Storm Irene’s power and the havoc it wreaked on the East Coast. Long Beach became national news days after the city had issued mandatory evacuation notices.

Many said that the water from the ocean merged with overflow from Reynolds Channel. “The bay came up — the bulkheads were lower than the water line, and the water came down the streets,” said West Pine Street resident Scott Bochner, who obeyed the evacuation order. “The dunes saved the West End … but on the bay side, from New York Avenue down, [the water] came over.”

“Some of the lower-lying streets had serious flooding,” said Wyoming Avenue resident Rich Papetti, one of many residents who chose to ride out the storm. “North of Beech Street there was more — you had two feet of water as you got closer to the bay.”

Roughly 4,000 residences and businesses were without power for days, as city crews repaired the damage to property and sections of the boardwalk, and cut up and carted away 33 downed trees that pulled down power lines and tore up sidewalks. The storm caused $2.1 million in damage in the city, and officials say that the Federal Emergence Management Agency is expected to reimburse $1.34 million of that by the end of the fiscal year.