Woodmere under water

Coping with evacuation, Shabbos and the storm

Posted Thursday, September 1, 2011 12:00 am

Far Rockaway resident Binyamin Gitnik and his mother Aviva Goldman survey the storm’s aftermath near Beach 9th Street.

Photo by Sergey Kadinsky

Justin and Rebecca Kraus take a break from paddling to reflect on the changed landscape outside their North Boulevard home.

Photo by Brian Kraus

A downed tree blocked Main Street in Kew Gardens Hills requiring massive effort to clear the roadway.

Photo by Ayton Rice

This Woodmere doctor’s home took a hit, but the car remained unharmed.

Photo by Monica Rzewski

Yitzchak Vidomlansky rests for a moment on one of the many fallen trees in Far Rockaway, making the best of his evacuated neighborhood.

Photo by Ruth Vidomlansky

Hurricane Irene caused most streets off of Peninsula Blvd to be flooded and inaccessible.

Photo by Monica Rzewski

By Sergey Kadinsky

The warnings were dire, with a mandatory evacuation order issued for the 330,000 residents of Zone A, the low-lying coastal section of New York City that includes Staten Island’s south shore, Coney Island, and the Rockaway peninsula. “This is the storm where if you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time, it could be fatal,” New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said. “Comply with the mandatory evacuation.”

On a sunny Friday afternoon, ambulettes lined up outside the 298-bed Brookhaven Rehab & Health Care Center in Far Rockaway, complying with the order by evacuating every elderly patient to locations further inland ahead of Hurricane Irene. “We are getting calls from all nursing homes for the evacuation,” said medical supplier Abraham Krus.

As the vans filled up, reinforcements arrived with Satmar school buses from Williamsburg. Closer to the shore on Seagirt Boulevard, the West Lawrence Care Center had its windows taped up in anticipation of Hurricane Irene, which had already caused massive flooding in Puerto Rico, Bahamas and North Carolina, as it barreled up the east coast.

But not all residents were heeding the mayor’s call. “I’ve lived here for 40 years, and I live inland on Central Avenue in a building. My main concern is getting to work,” said Neil Last, who runs the coffee shop at St. John’s Episcopal Hospital. Closer to the shore, Aviva Goldman strolled across the soft sand with her son Binyamin Gitnik, 6, shrugging off the apocalyptic warnings. “The city overreacted, it caused more trouble because people had a hard time getting back,” Goldman said. Most of her neighbors on Beach 9 Street evacuated, giving her waterfront block a ghost town appearance. “It was a very quiet shabbos, and my son was watching the waves from our window.”

In a sense of irony, while Far Rockaway sustained minor flooding, communities further inland witnessed power outages and damage from fallen trees. “We live two homes from the ocean and we got out,” said Atlantic Beach resident Stanley Nussbaum, who stayed with his niece in Weston, Conn. “We came back on Sunday, and to our surprise, there was no flooding nor loss of electricity; but our niece lost power at her home.”