Except for a few "swamp rats" down near the Great South Bay and along Beaver Dam creek, most folks in Brookhaven hamlet seemed to have suffered little direct damage from Hurricane Sandy. A few trees fell on houses, but even then, from what I could see, there was little damage to the structure itself. However, I did not conduct an extensive survey. Many trees and large limbs were felled, however. Large parts of the hamlet had no electrical power at all, although most had their power restored within 2-3 days. However, many were without hard-wired telephone service and internet services, some with outages that lasted several weeks. Cell phone service seemed, at first, fairly good--depending our your provider. But after a couple of powerless days cell phone service mostly failed. This was particularly troublesome for the elderly and disabled who have come to rely on their cell phones for back-up to the land-line Verizon service.
For the most part, the Town of Brookhaven was surprisingly prompt in removing fallen trees and picking-up debris, the exception seemed to be locations in which the trees were entangled with electrical and other utility wires. Of special concern was a large tree which fell across Beaver Dam road near the Brookhaven Free Library. Initially, police closed Beaver Dam road using police tape. This required a roughly one mile bypass detour to get around it. But after several days of no action to clear the tree, folks apparently grew tired of the detour and felt it was safe enough to scoot under the the limb.
Looking east on Beaver Dam road
Looking west on Beaver Dam road
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