In a small boating community in Broad Channel overlooking the Jamaica Bay, residents were still reeling from the damage that Tropical Storm Irene left behind when it struck New York in the early morning hours on Sunday.
Stephen Madigan, and a second man who did not want to be identified, returned to find their summer homes completely destroyed. The hurricane-turned-tropical storm turned their homes into a pile of debris and left them wondering how their homes could be standing one minute and floating in water the next.
Tom and Ginger Brauner, who have a summer house next door to the two destroyed homes, said on Monday that losing the houses leaves a gaping hole in their small community.
“It was so fun, it was such a fun place,” said Ginger Brauner, as she began to cry. “People say ‘oh, it was just a bungalow’ but it was more than that to me.”
“[I have] a lot of happy memories,” said Tom Brauner, who has spent his summers in Broad Channel since he purchased a house in 1975. “It’s like having a favorite place to go to and the whole family would go.”
The Brauners, who live in Islandia, Long Island during the winter months, said all three families would bring their kids and other family members there, creating their own private summer get together. Tom Brauner says there would be as many as a dozen children present at a time.
The tropical storm left the houses in nothing but a pile of wood, barely hanging over the broken walkway prevented them from floating into the bay.
Although the Brauner’s house didn’t suffer the same fate as other houses in the neighborhood, it still has some damage that will take time to fix.
Part of their deck lost its flooring and shifted two and a half feet to the right. Tom and Ginger couldn’t pinpoint what caused the shift but they believe that it will take most of September to fix all of the damages.
“I can’t understand what pushed us over,” Tom Brauner said.
The Iroquois Yacht Club, located on the same block where the Brauner family lives, suffered some roof and kitchen damage from the storm.
Bill Ski, a member and former Commodore of the club, estimates that the storm caused about $4,000 to $5,000 in damage to the building, which is more than he expected.
“I came down here just to check on personal things and wow,” Ski said. “I’ve been here for 30 years and this is the worst I’ve seen it.”
Ski said that the kitchen filled up with a foot and a half of water and a big part of the roof was torned off by the storm’s strong winds. He said that the roof damage was the biggest surprise to him.
“The whole thing has to be replaced,” Ski said of the roof.
Despite Mayor Michael Bloomberg ordering Broad Channel residents to evacuate prior to the storm making landfall, some ignored the order and remained inside their home.
Elizabeth Knapp, a Broad Channel resident for 53 years, said that she chose to stay because she wanted to watch over her house while the storm hit.
“Why so a bunch of losers can rob my home?” Knapp said. “I don’t have much but what’s mine is nobody else’s.”
Knapp added that she survived two other hurricanes, Donna in 1960 and Gloria in 1985, and didn’t feel the need to evacuate despite reports that coastal areas would be heavily flooded.
Her basement was filled with about six to eight inches of water, damaging the floor and breaking a washer, dryer and a refrigerator. She said that when she asked FEMA to ask them to replace the appliances she lost, their response was that it was not declared a disaster area. Knapp said that she wants FEMA to replace the appliances because she doesn’t have flood insurance.
Other Broad Channel residents like Patricia Doyle, who lives on West 10th Road and Cross Bay Boulevard, chose to remain home so they could begin clean up sooner than if they evacuated.
Doyle said that she was nervous while the storm was going over New York, but she had the support of her neighbors in case she needed help with anything.
“This is a community, this is what we do,” Doyle said.
By Luis Gronda
