Are we ready for the next big storm?

Little more than a month after a storm that ranked among the largest in Long Island's history, some local legislators gathered at Adelphi University on April 15 to ask, Are we prepared for the next big storm?

The answer, which will come as no surprise to those who sat in the dark for days after last month's "superstorm," seems to be no. But there is hope for the Island's storm preparedness. State Sen. Kemp Hannon, who organized the roundtable held at Adelphi University, said that one of the goals of the event was to find out just how far the area is from being ready, and what organizations like the Long Island Power Authority could do to mitigate storm-related problems in the future.

Just days after the roundtable, the Federal Emergency Management Agency announced that New York state will be granted access to federal disaster aid funds to help with the cleanup in the wake of last month's storm.

The funds are to be channeled through state and local governments, as well as a handful of nonprofit organizations, to help ease the cost of repairs to emergency response equipment and facilities that may still need to be brought back online.

Island Park Mayor Jim Ruzicka said the funding is good news, especially after the village sustained significant tree damage, coastal flooding and beach erosion, especially at the end of Pershing Place. On May 5, Ruzicka said he will attend a meeting with Nassau County Office of Emergency Management officials and FEMA representatives, who will be on hand to explain how municipalities can apply for the funding.

"If we can get some reimburesement, the additional funding would be a big help, and that's always good for our taxpayers," said Ruzicka.

At a village board meeting on April 15, Ruzicka said that he has also reached out to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to assist with the repairs and help stave off future storm damage.

A successful meeting

Hannon, along with state Sen. Charles Fuschillo, said the meeting was successful simply because it illustrated the importance of communication with homeowners in affected areas -- something many residents felt was lacking and after during the March storm.

"The roundtable was enormously successful, just as a way to learn what's out there and that the efforts are coordinated -- the police and LIPA and emergency services," Fuschillo said. "Communication is the key to success in preparedness for an emergency situation, whether it's a hurricane or any other situation, and I believe we may have to think about how certain agencies get their message out to the public. That has to be coordinated to one central agency."

Among the possible communication solutions that were discussed, the most popular was a program that would create a kind of emergency broadcast system for cell phones. Cell towers in an affected area would be programmed to transmit emergency messages to residents to ensure that they have every chance to be apprised of an emergency situation. The program would go hand in hand with emergency messages broadcast on television and on the Internet, as well as those broadcast by the National Weather Service.

The most important revelation, according to Hannon, was that none of the emergency management agencies were caught off guard by March's storm. "We saw what people had done in light of the March 13 storm — how they've improved, how they're reviewing," he said. "I think there's a lot of good things happening, and no one's complacent. The best thing is that no one's complacent."

LIPA's responsibility

LIPA had been widely criticized because, by its own admission, it took as long as a week in some cases to restore power to residents. Kevin Law, LIPA's chief executive officer, said that, by and large, the authority was prepared for a significant event but failed to grasp the scope of the storm until it was too late.

"While we were certainly prepared for a significant weather event, what happened was certainly well beyond what was forecasted," Law said. He explained that while many utilities have computers and specialized equipment, ultimately there is only a limited amount of manpower available to respond to a storm.

"When it comes to the electrical system, we can't just push a button to get people's lights back on," he said. "The damage that was done by this storm ... was really horrific, and it takes manpower. There's no computer, there's no text, there's no new media technology that's available to get the lights back on."

Law said that LIPA is currently undergoing a review by a group that includes utilities from outside the area as well as utilities evaluators, to see which of its operations could be most improved. "We've called for a major storm panel review," he said. "To look at what we did, how we performed and what we can do better."

In the meantime, residents will have to face up to some unfortunate truths, including the revelation by Law and LIPA Senior Vice President Mike Hervey that Long Islanders could face up to a month without power if a large-scale hurricane were to hit the island.

"With a Category 2 or 3 hurricane, we're looking at a month, three or four weeks of restoration depending on where it hits," Hervey said.

Flood zones

Perhaps the meeting's most sobering exhibit was a map of the area's storm surge zones. A multi-colored display illustrated zones that would be flooded almost immediately in a large storm. "That's my entire district," Fuschillo said, acknowledging that he had seen the map before. Depending on its severity, a storm could potentially flood all of Nassau County's South Shore towns and villages, including Long Beach, Island Park Oceanside, Baldwin, Merrick, the Five Towns and Valley Stream. In a major hurricane, those who live south of Sunrise Highway would be in immediate and grave danger. If the storm were a Category 4, the second-most-powerful category, the flood waters would surge as far north as Malverne.

The Red Cross of Nassau County has 20 evacuation centers spread across several neighborhoods north of the storm surge zone, explained Frank Cassano, CEO of Nassau County Red Cross, designed to ensure that more than 34,000 people have a place to go in the event of an emergency.

"I think you need to get a very serious message out to your constituents that one of these days this is going to be real, and people need to take the warnings of being prepared seriously," Cassano said. "You don't want to come to a Red Cross shelter ... We'll keep you alive and we'll keep you fed, but that's about as good as it's going to get."

James Callahan, commissioner of the county's Office of Emergency Management Callahan, said that the most important thing his office could do was to find a more consistent way to keep the public informed. "We need to find a different way or other ways to reach out to the general public and get them to understand the capabilities of the government or lack of capabilities of the government," Callahan said. "We're overdue for a hurricane. ... We're overdue for a Category 1, we're overdue for a Category 2 and we're overdue for a Category 3, and it's important to get people to understand that."

Anthony Rifilato contributed to this story.

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