It’s been six months since Hurricane Sandy ripped through Port Washington, and signs of recovery and renewal are everywhere – from tree plantings on the gateway to the peninsula to piles of mulch ground from the downed trees.
Still, for some, full recovery is a bit of a reach.
Take Julie Meer Harnick, the executive director of Community Chest of Port Washington.
In her role at the Community Chest, Harnick has helped organizations that demonstrated a significant programming, operating or capital need because of Hurricane Sandy. Harnick knew full well how these organizations might be suffering because Sandy left her home uninhabitable due to storm damage.
“We ended up giving out Sandy grants to all that applied,” said Harnick, who is still awaiting a settlement with her insurance company, and hopes to be back in her home before Sandy’s one year-mark.
The Community Chest provided grants to the Port Washington Police Athletic League, which was able to replace a baseball pitching machine, Community Mainstreaming Associates, to purchase and install a generator at a Port Washington group home, and Chabad of Port Washington, to help with its recovery campaign after flooding rendered the floors at the synagogue and its gym unusable.
To celebrate its restoration, Chabad is holding a grand re-opening on June 3, in conjunction with its annual dinner.
“The cocktail hour of the dinner will be open to all members of the community free of charge as our way to thank the community for helping us rebuild,” said Rabbi Shalom Paltiel. “At that time people can tour the facility and see the rebuilt facility and enjoy an open bar and finger food, which will be passed around, followed by an awards ceremony and ribbon cutting.”
Meanwhile, at the town’s transfer station just south of North Hempstead Beach Park, residents can bring their own bags and pick up free mulch from the trees downed by Sandy.
As a town spokesman pointed out, there’s no shortage of mulch. “We received approximately 55,000 tons of debris from Superstorm Sandy,” said Ryan Mulholland.
“We used a horizontal grinder and a tub grinder to grind up approximately 35,000 tons of the debris received.”
And there’s more where that came from.
“We still have about 10,000-12,000 tons of un-ground stumps on-site at the landfill, which we anticipate on grinding in the near future," he said.
The town has already shipped out nearly 5,000 tons of debris from its transfer station.
Residents can pick up mulch at the town’s transfer station at 999 West Shore Road in Port Washington on Sunday during resident drop off, from 7:30am to 3:30pm.
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