Former residents ride out coastal storm
A view of the East River flooding Gantry Plaza State Park in Long Island City, a neighborhood in Queens, N.Y., about 6:15 p.m. Monday. Part of the Manhattan skyline is visible across the top of the photo.
Photo taken about 9:15 p.m. Monday of a car partially submerged in flood water along the 4700 block of Center Boulevard in Long Island City, a neighborhood in Queens, N.Y. The area was part of the evacuation zone in New York City.
Despite orders to evacuate his New York City neighborhood, a former Washington County resident stayed behind and watched Monday as the howling winds and heavy rain sent north by Hurricane Sandy flooded the area surrounding his apartment building along the East River.”I’ve been wet before. I’ll be wet again,” said Adam Taylor, who grew up in Peters Township and moved to Long Island City in Queens, N.Y., in late 2008. “It’ll take more than a little flood water to shake me from my post.”Taylor said only a handful of stragglers from his building stayed behind to ride out the storm.While the frightful weather raged Monday, Taylor said he watched from his 25th-floor apartment as nearby Gantry Plaza State Park flooded and he saw several neon-green explosions caused by blown transformers.”All of Manhattan was dark,” Taylor said. “The only building that stayed on was the Empire State Building.”Although his own building seemed to shake from time to time, Taylor said he never lost power.Taylor’s roommate, Greg Harrison, a native New Yorker who also stayed behind, said the effects of Sandy were much more visible than those caused by Hurricane Irene the year before.”We actually saw the water come all the way up to the street,” he said.Taylor said Tuesday the water had receded from nearby roads, but the subway system he relies on to commute to work remained shut down.Another former Washington County resident who now resides in New York also saw his routine disrupted by the storm. Paul Snatchko was stranded in his hometown of Burgettstown during the storm because of canceled flights.”It looks like JFK Airport will open tomorrow,” he said Tuesday. “My apartment is fine. We never lost power.”To the south, former Millsboro resident John K. Kornick waited out the storm as it passed overhead in North Cape May, N.J., where he now lives.”There is widespread damage from the wind, water and sand,” Kornick said. “Amazingly, we never lost power. Cape May beachfront is a different story.”He said it was impossible Tuesday to reach the shoreline because of the damage.Another coastal resident, Bill Bruce of Virginia Beach, Va., formerly of Fallowfield Township, said his area had heavy tidal flooding along the coast.Like Kornick, he reported “a lot of wind and rain but no loss of power.”