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Mostly Cloudy Decade after Sandy, officials want to be prepared
It’s been a decade since Hurricane Sandy devastated Nassau County. Yet, instead of showcasing what could’ve easily been the worst moments of many people’s lives — instead it displayed their perseverance.
“We saw the very best in people,” said Hempstead town councilman Anthony D’Esposito, who was chief of the Island Park Fire Department at the time.
“We saw the very best of the people that wear a uniform — whether as a career or as volunteers — putting their community first.”
D’Esposito joined Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, Nassau County Police Department commissioner Patrick Ryder and others during a commemoration ceremony last week, recalling many of those heroic stories in the face of a horrific storm.
The councilman recalled one specific incident where a house burned in the middle of a flooded street. He had to do everything he could to stop the whole block from igniting, so his Island Park firefighting unit had no choice but to drive their truck straight through the house to destroy it. That allowed floodwaters to drown what remained of the blaze.
Ryder remembers October 2012 as a very difficult month for the county police force after already losing Officers Joseph Olivieri and Arthur Lopez before being called up to help with Hurricane Sandy rescue. The commissioner recalls sitting in church with his family when that alert came.
At first, Ryder was only given command of roughly 100 officers. But when the Sandy’s major surge hit, Ryder found himself in command of National Guardsmen, detectives, police officers and state troopers.
With the chance another storm could pummel Long Island, Blakeman ran an emergency drill through his executive management office.
“We had people thinking outside the box, working together as partners to make sure that people in Nassau County were safe,” Ryder said. “That’s the message and lessons that we’ve learned from Sandy. We know the next one will come, but we will be better prepared.”
Fire Marshal Mike Uttaro looked back at the actual Sandy response, remembering the camaraderie.
“We worked with teams we’ve never had before,” he said. “We had fire departments from the Adirondacks coming down in shifts to help the fire departments of the South Shore.”
That was a team that included Richard Corbett, now the emergency management office commissioner.
“It was like a snow storm of concrete,” Corbett said. “It’s not the sand you walk in when you first get off the boardwalk. It’s the rock-hard sand down by the water, that you yell at your kids for throwing at each other.”
With all the looking to the past, elected leaders like Blakeman have to keep a constant eye on the future. Especially when there are other storms — maybe not at Sandy levels — but storms like the remnants of Hurricane Ian last year can be just as devastating.
“Three things keep me up at night,” Blakeman said. “Blizzards, active shooters and hurricanes. So, on two hours notice, I ran an emergency drill at the OEM Center. And I have to tell you, I felt a lot better.”
