Bob Kaible and his wife, Deborah Raimey, owned a yellow-clapboard rental bungalow on Michigan Street, behind their two-story Minnesota Avenue home, in Long Beach’s West End, when Hurricane Sandy struck on Oct. 29, 2012, submerging the narrow blocks surrounding the properties in six feet of saltwater. more

A team of six Herald editors and reporters –– Scott Brinton, Jeff Bessen, Alex Costello, Mary Malloy, Anthony Rifilato and Alexandra Spychalsky –– have taken second place for Community … more

There comes a moment in a monster hurricane such as Sandy when you question why you live on Long Island, this 118-mile-long spit of glacial debris deposited in the Atlantic Ocean from the mainland 20,000 years ago. more

“Homecoming” usually conjures images of colorful parade floats and hard-fought football games, but for the students, faculty and staff of East Rockaway and Lawrence high schools, the term has a more basic meaning: the return to their respective school buildings after months of repair following the devastation of Hurricane Sandy. more

Like no other storm since the “Long Island Express” of 1938, Hurricane Sandy ripped apart Long Island’s South Shore, lifting docks off their moorings and depositing them miles away, tearing hot tubs from backyard decks and dumping them in the canals that line the coast, and sending boats big and small hurtling out to sea. more

Hurricane Sandy was our worst nightmare realized. This monster storm packed as much energy as two World War II era atomic bombs, causing massive destruction, the likes of which had not been seen since the Long Island Express of 1938, a now legendary Category III hurricane. Trapped on an island jutting into the Atlantic Ocean, we were front and center when Sandy attacked with a vengeance. Thousands of homes were inundated with seawater and sewage. Hundreds were left uninhabitable. Two and a half years later, we continue to rebuild our tattered shoreline. In this series we will look in the coming months at the Governor’s Office of Storm Recovery’s ongoing effort to reconstruct worst-case homes, businesses and communities that Sandy ravaged on Oct. 29, 2012 — and the myriad issues that residents and officials face as they piece together our shredded infrastructure. At the same time, we will look at state and local officials’ efforts to reinforce Long Island in the hope that we might be able to withstand nature’s fury better when the next monster storm hits. —Scott Brinton, senior editor more

For local residents, Oct. 29, 2012 will be one of a handful of historic dates that those on the south shore of Long Island will remember for the rest of their lives, talking about where they were … more

“What happened with Sandy is really a metaphor with what’s happening in Washington,” U.S. Rep. Peter … more

South Shore residents have returned to their normal lives in the months since Hurricane Sandy, but many people’s thoughts are starting to turn to the potential for another big storm. Is it possible to stop the floodwaters that inundated coastal neighborhoods? they wonder. more

When Hurricane Sandy struck on Oct. 29, it inundated thousands of South Shore yards with saltwater, which is awful for lawns and most plants. Over the past 4½ months, homeowners have watched helplessly as their hydrangeas have shriveled up, their boxwoods have turned rust-colored and their grass has become a mottled patch of brown and more brown. In many cases, years’ worth of yard work, valued at thousands of dollars, was seemingly destroyed in a single night. more