SANDY’S
DEVASTATION
from the high-tide line.
One such community was Port
Regalle, a 65-unit condominium
project on the tip of Great Kills
Harbor built by the Lockton Corporation, a Manhattan real estate
development firm. The development was badly damaged by Sandy’s surge, and two elderly residents drowned while attempting
to flee after failing to heed evacuation warnings until the storm was
already upon them, according to
the New York Police Department
and the New York City medical
examiner’s office.
Police said the bodies of the
couple, an 89-year-old man and
his 66-year-old wife, were found
several blocks from their home,
under a washed-up powerboat
near their water-filled car.
“They thought they could outdrive the water,” said Ellen Borakove, a spokeswoman with the
medical examiner’s office.
Another development on the
south shore, called Captain’s Quarters, sits directly on the water. It
was built by Muss Development,
which bills itself on its website as
one of New York City’s largest real
estate developers. Many homes in
the community sustained serious
flooding damage during the storm.
HUFFINGTON
12.02.12
A spokesman from Muss Development declined to comment.
Messages left for an executive at
the Lockton Corporation requesting comment were not returned.
Both developments were
cleared by the city despite opposition by local conservation groups,
said Richard Lynch, a biologist
and environmental activist. “It’s
literally been a pitched battle between conservationists and the
developers,” Lynch said. “We’ve
seen a lot of money going around.”
These and other waterfront
developments, along with the
wide-scale subdividing of lots and
the infill of vacant land in existing neighborhoods, magnified the
power of the surge, by clearing
vegetation and wetlands that act
as buffers during storms.
“We’ve hardscaped those
sponges, so that they no longer
naturally slow down the impact of
that incoming surge,” said William
J. Fritz, a geologist and president
of the College of Staten Island.
In the wake of Sandy, the city
should explore rezoning the most
at-risk residential areas on the
south shore, and restoring natural
barriers, as part of a broader effort
to prepare for future and potentially more powerful storms, Fritz
said. “I think we need to consider
rezoning high risk areas,” he said.
The Bloomberg administration