Bellmore-Merrick slowly emerges from Irene

Theresa Policaro has made her home on Hewlett Lane in south Bellmore for more than 30 years, and so, she said, she was reluctant to leave her house when she was ordered to evacuate last Friday by Nassau County Executive Ed Mangano in preparation for Hurricane Irene, which ripped a swath of destruction across Long Island over the weekend.

Policaro, though, had lived through Hurricane Gloria in 1985. She knew all too well how powerful a hurricane can be, even when it’s downgraded to a tropical storm, as was the case on the Island. And so she heeded Mangano’s call to leave by Saturday afternoon. But, like tens of thousands of South Shore residents living in low-lying areas, she spent a terrifying night, wondering what her home might look like when she returned.

“I thought it was going to be blown away,” Policaro said.

Her house, only blocks from a canal, survived. But she found two feet of water in her basement, which she was still draining with a sump pump on Monday morning.

The front lawn of her neighbor, Pat Sila, collapsed during the storm, forming a sinkhole four feet deep. Sila, who has lived on Hewlett Lane for 36 years, said she stayed at home during Gloria, but when Mangano sounded the evacuation alarm ahead of Irene, she left for higher ground.

Sila said there was flooding on her street during Gloria, but nothing like what her block experienced during Irene. The massive storm’s powerful surge raised the Atlantic by eight feet as it swept into Long Island during high tide on Sunday morning, sending saltwater spilling into communities south of Merrick Road, which lie, on average, five to 10 feet above sea level. Sila had heard from neighbors who stayed through Irene that people were paddling up and down her street in rowboats and kayaks.

Sila left for a relative’s home in North Bellmore on Saturday afternoon and returned Sunday afternoon. She was relieved, she said, that she still had power when she got back. She had water in her basement, but nothing that two built-in sump pumps couldn’t handle.

A community without power