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Community Corner

Recounting the "Hurricane Without A Name"

Rye resident Michael Iachetta gives his first-hand account of the havoc wreaked by this weekend's storm.

They're calling it "the hurricane without a name" around Rye and beyond. 

But with or without a name, the impact of the drenching, not-so-perfect storm had a lingering and ongoing impact throughout the past weekend in and around Rye. That impact was felt from the gated condo town house complex where I live at Water's Edge, near Rye Town Park and Playland, to places ranging from the nearby Rye YMCA off Locust Avenue to The Church of the Resurection off Milton Road. 

It was lights out in more ways than one, for me (more about that in  a jiffy) and lots of others -- and not just because the power was down for more than 24 hours. 

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Across the way from me, for example, the gutter was blown off the roof of the home of my next door neighbor, Dr. Jacqueline Putin, with several Water's Edge homes hit that  same way. 

My other neighbor, Paul Ciotti, a retired economics professor, had a leak in his front window (which he economically repaired himself) and handled his melting powerless freezer by taking out all the food and improvising enough meals to last a week. My wife, Stephanie, did the same thing once the lights went out around Water's Edge about 7:30 p.m. Saturday. And my neighbors right down on the water, like surgical nurse Toni Maloney and business entrepreneurs Alina and Michael Bucieri, watched waves over 12-feet high leap over the Water's Edge seawall. 

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"But all in all we got off lucky," said "Super Mike," grounds superintendent Michael Ladenhauf, who is responsible for the 84 town-houses that sit on the site that used to be the old Oakland Beach Swimming Pool. "Our pool was flooded with seawater and debris, and filled with hurled boulders, branches and benches, and the pool house was damaged. Lots of lost roof shingles and blown off gutters. But we came through mostly  OK." 

Just up the street from the Water's Edge gate house, however, one of the home's wasn't so lucky because two trees fell front and center, destroying the fence on the front and left side at Forest Avenue and Cornell Place. The next door circular mansion complex that is Bird Lane was without power, and there were trees down up and down Forest Avenue with the street looking like a woodcutter had strewn the area with branches and wood chips and several of the homes looking like their lawns had suddenly become ponds. 

At the nearby Rye YMCA, CEO Gregg Howells and his staff  made an early decision to c close the Y around 6:30 p.m. that Saturday night, eliminating Teen Night, but getting in a full day of regular Y activities, including classes.

"Closing the Y Saturday night turned out to be the right decision, because the lights went out around 7:30 and it would have been awkward to have all those teen-agers in a gym without light," Howells said. "The Y was closed Sunday, and opened on a regular schedule Monday. The power was off around 24 hours, with the lights going  on around 8:30 Sunday night. That gave us time to make sure everything was OK for the regular Monday opening." 

Howells, too, felt the YMCA got off lucky because there was no major swimming pool and structural damage this time around. Blind Brook didn't overflow like it did during the last major flooding in April of 2007 when the Y sustained $800,000 worth of flood damage.

Nearby Indian Village was hit just as hard, maybe harder.  

"We had major flood gates installed around all  our walls not long after that storm, and  they seemed to have done the job for us this time," Howells said. 

The Church of the Resurrection was plunged into darkness around 7:30 p.m. Saturday night, and Sunday Masses were held by candlelight, with ushers toting flash lights leading the congregation towards the pews.

"It may be inconvenient with the lights  out, but the candles around the altar sure make for wonderful ambience," said Reverend Monsignor Edward O'Donnell, senior priest, at the conclusion of the 11:15 a.m. Sunday Mass, one of four Masses held that day. 

Playland Market off Forest Avenue and Playland Parkway did booming business, starting with breakfast coffees and omelets that Sunday morning because nobody in the area had enough power to do any cooking. 

As for me, it was déjà vu all over again in an eery way because I missed the height of the storm Saturday afternoon because I went in to New York City to a Broadway matinee of "Next Fall."

I thought I got off lucky by the time I got back to Rye because the train back was just 11 minutes late, and when I had called home before boarding at Grand Central my wife was concerned that the trains wouldn't be running and I would have to spend the night in town. But, I knew things had to be really bad because the lights were out at all the stations on the way back. When the train pulled into Rye the parking lot was dark and looked like a lake. My car all but hydroplaned as I eased out of the lot and onto Post Road. 

I took it slow driving down Post Road past a darkened library, City Hall, and Village Green, turned off Playland Parkway and thought I was all but home free when I eased into Water's Edge off Forest and Cornell Place only to find a tree across the entrance, and another one dangling as though it was about to fall. I got out of the car, wondering where I was going  to park it overnight if I couldn't get by. I tried lifting the branches, only they were impossibly heavy. 

And then it got scary, because the sodden branches of the split and bent over tree next to the fallen tree began to quiver, shiver and groan in the wind. And  it was eerily scary, déjà vu all over again for me, because more than a quarter of a century ago I had been hit by a falling cottonwood tree while whitewater rafting in Alaska on an adventure travel writing assignment that gave  me more adventure than I'd signed on for. That left me crippled for life, and I didn't get home for more than six months after that accident –and then only after several life-saving, leg-saving operations in Alaska and Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan. I had to learn how to walk again, still undergo thrice weekly physical therapy, and didn't like the way that Rye tree was groaning now as I stared up at it. 

Just when I was wondering  what to do next,  Steve Lindenhauf, "Super Mike's" son, came out of the Water's Edge gate house with a flash light, as did his counterpart from the condo complex next door. They told me to get into my car, make a quick left into the driveway of the complex next door, and that led me into Water's Edge, drenched, shaken, but safe.

That night I dreamt of Alaska, heard the crack of that falling tree like it was yesterday, and felt its impact once again. Only this time I could wake up, and I was safe at home in a Rye that was hit hard by "The Hurricane Without a Name." 

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