Dune Road in Hampton Bays Takes Brunt of Storm Damage as East End Largely Spared by Nor'easter

The South Fork escaped largely unscathed, except for a swath of severe erosion along Dune Road in Hampton Bays, when a nor’easter coming up the East Coast swept over Long Island on Columbus Day weekend.

“We lost a significant amount of dune and are in a bad position going into the winter,” said Ryan Murphy, Southampton Town’s emergency management director.

Murphy said he was in contact with Suffolk County, which owns the eroded beach, and expressed concern for the Shinnecock commercial fishing dock nearby. “Hopefully, something can be done to fortify the dune structure so that we are able to withstand the winter season,” he said.

Otherwise, except for isolated reports of storm damage — and plenty of cleanup jobs for landscapers to tackle — both Southampton and East Hampton towns largely dodged another weather bullet.

According to the National Weather Service, the region’s highest wind gusts — 52 mph — were recorded on Napeague in East Hampton at 5:53 a.m. on Monday, October 13. Gusts of 51 mph were recorded at Montauk Airport at 7:49 that same morning.

The weather service also reported a high rainfall total of 2.14 inches at East Hampton Airport, with 1.46 inches recorded at Gabreski Airport in Westhampton.

The storm moved in slowly, with rain and moderate winds on Sunday that grew more powerful into the evening and lasted through Monday.

In East Hampton, town officials are looking at drone footage to assess the impacts of erosion, although Councilman Tom Flight said the town will have a better understanding of the impacts once the materials settle in a couple of days.

So far, it appears the Atlantic Avenue Beach in Amagansett took the brunt of the erosion impacts, despite the northeasterly winds, according to Flight, who serves as the Town Board liaison to the emergency preparedness committee and has visited beaches to assess the damage.

“I think our reaction in storm preparation was good,” he said. “There was good communication between the departments. You never know what you’re going to get in these kinds of situations, but I think we worked well across our municipal departments.”

Aram Terchunian, a coastal geologist with First Coastal Inc. in Westhampton Beach, agreed with Murphy’s assessment of the damage on Dune Road in Hampton Bays: “That area is razor thin.”

Otherwise, Terchunian said that all of the restored ocean beaches, from Montauk to West Hampton Dunes, had fared well. “There was a wide and high summer berm that absorbed the height of the impact” over three tide cycles, he said.

“All in all, we held up okay,” Murphy added. “The wind speeds did not materialize to the extent the National Weather Service forecast, so that was helpful. Although it was windy, had we seen more gusts toward the upper 50s or 60 mph, we would have had more problems.”

As it was, Murphy noted some flooding in low-lying areas near Peconic Bay. “Some streets that routinely flood did have a bit more water than normal due to the tide and wind pushing water into the bay and piling up,” he said.

Murphy said the town’s Highway Department responded quickly to remove limbs that had fallen onto roads and that PSEG Long Island was well prepared for the storm.

PSEG reported that approximately 35,000 customers had lost power across Long Island during the height of the storm, but that 98 percent of them had their power restored by Monday night. A handful of outages remained in Southampton and East Hampton towns early Tuesday morning, but later in the day an outage map on the PSEG website showed those customers’ power had been restored.

Other Reports of Damage

A large sailboat broke free of its mooring and ran aground in North Haven on Monday, but Chris Duryea, Sag Harbor Village’s assistant harbormaster, said most boat owners had moved their boats to safety after being warned of the coming storm last Thursday.

In Bridgehampton, a large maple tree fell into a house at 173 Maple Lane. Damage was limited, though, because the blow was absorbed by two large evergreen trees, said homeowner Larry Dangel.

He said on Monday the tree was one of three maples in front of his home and that they are among the few remaining mature maple trees on a street that was named for them.

The Hampton Bays Fire Department responded to a minor electrical fire at a home at 68 Shore Road overnight Sunday.

With reporting by Jack Motz.