Mayor Scordino: A New Babylon Village After Hurricane Sandy

Hurricane Sandy is a story that will be told through many eyes, but few had the same ability to watch the storm clobber an area so first-hand as Babylon Village's mayor as he and other village officials patrolled the village as floodwaters rose, residents tried to evacuate and homes and other possessions were lost.

The night Hurricane Sandy slammed at full force into Babylon Village is still fresh in Mayor Ralph Scordino's mind, as he recalled the expectations and forecasts for the storm were up in the air as it approached.

"We didn't know what we were going to get," Scordino recalled from the early hours of Sandy's massive push into the area. "We didn't get that much rain, but we were getting reports of a lot of flooding down south."

Scordino, along with highway superintendent "Skip" Gardner, hopped into a village truck to inspect the reports in the areas south of Main Street. 

"It was obvious then that we were going to get some flooding we really didn't expect," he said, adding residents also did not comprehend the kind of flooding that was imminent. "It became quite obvious, once we were into it, the biggest obstacle we were going to face was the flooding."

Scordino said scene after scene played out the in village: boats in storage off the ground that were thought to be safe floated down streets, residents being plucked from their homes as rising waters trapped them and, then, the fires began.

"The one house on Trask Lane... Skip and I were the first ones there," Scordino said. "We couldn't open the door to get in because the water was up three-quarters of the door."

When the storm finally ended and waters slowly receded, it was time to shift to clean-up mode in the village – mostly for keeping the village safe, but also to return to a sense of normalcy, Scordino said.

"Trying to get that psychological picture off people's minds because their livelihood is put out to street... we tried to get it off the streets as fast as we could," he said. The village alone had over 60,000 square yards of household debris that needed to be removed.

Outside of a "monumental" cleanup task, Scordino said the toughest thing he saw in the days and weeks after Sandy dissipated, was seeing his neighbors and fellow residents lose their homes. 

"I remember seeing an elderly couple in Fred Shores in shock, just dulled by the whole experience. A lot of them had no where to turn to for the support of going through such a disaster of this propotion," he said.

But help came from the community quick enough, he noted, as Babylon's caring community came together with groups like Babylon Helps and Babylon Neighbors Supporting Neighbors springing up in the days following Sandy's strike.

"We had organizers come through right after," he said. "They all came together as a community and doing that gave people the sense that we can come together to help people who lost so much of their lives in the storm."

Scordino said the biggest thing government needs to do is make sure the area can be better prepared to offset a disaster such as Sandy.

"When you consider it was a borderline tropical storm, imagine what a full-fledged category three or four would do to a community like this," he said. "We have to really look at our infrastructure and communications – not only with our residents, but with our first responders and utilities."

"We all have to be on the same page," he added. "We have to look at it all a lot closer for the future."

Reflecting on the year that has passed, Scordino said the new look to Babylon, as well as other south shore communities, is the new reality as homes are lifted weekly to prevent them from being claimed by the next storm.

"It's hard to believe that, while you see improvements down south of Montauk Highway, you still have homes being demolished and lifted. Some homes, people haven't even been back to as a whole year that's gone by," Scordino said, noting maybe 50 families total were not back in their homes just yet. "Now we are dealing with a new landscape down of our village down south... three, four, five, even eight feet higher."

"It's a new landscape of people living close to the bay," he said.