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Light Rain Many Long Beach residents opt to brave Hurricane Irene
While many flee Long Beach, for some, hunkering down is the only option
Long Beach resident Billy King piled up white sandbags in front of his Ohio Avenue home on Friday afternoon, and secured sheets of plywood along the garage and base windows.
He has lived on Ohio Avenue since 1975, when his father, Bill King, Sr., a retired NYPD officer, moved the family to Long Beach. He now lives across the street from his parents, with his wife and kids, and said that despite evacuation notices for Long Beach, he and his family intend to ride out the looming storm.
“We’ve been here all of our lives,” said King. “If it was a category two, we were going to leave, but it looks like it’s weakening.”
King echoed the sentiments of many residents along Ohio and other parts of town. And while many have heeded the evacuation order, King said a number of folks, many of them elderly, have decided to stick it out. Billy King helped prepare nearly 100 sandbags for five homes on the block.
“They’re all staying — we’re all helping each other out,” Bill King Sr. said. “Most of the people here have lived here as long as we have. My sister lives by Washington Boulevard, and she’s staying as well.”
On Friday evening, Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano issued a mandatory evacuation of the barrier island. With more than 33,000 residents in the city, officials are urging residents to heed the notice, and they are being advised to evacuate by 5 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 27.
“You need to be out of the city by 5 p.m. tomorrow,” said Lenny Remo, a city official.“People hopefully will be intelligent enough to go, but there is no way we can completely enforce it.”
And while the Kings said that they are not taking the hurricane lightly, Billy King said they have not changed their decision, and said they are girding and preparing themselves to deal with power outages and flooding.
“We’re going to get something, but I don’t think it’s anything we can’t handle,” King said. “With [Hurricane] Gloria, we didn’t have the dunes and there are new storm drains now. We’re pretty confident. We're banking on the power going out, though."
