Home Environment & Nature Tropical Storm Fay Heads Towards Long Island

Tropical Storm Fay Heads Towards Long Island

by Daniel Dunaief - July 10, 2020

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LongBeach_Photow — Long Beach, Smithtown: Visitors to Smithtown’s Long Beach, a narrow land spit, will find an artificial berm to keep stormwater out during the winter. Many of the private roads slightly east of the town beach experience flooding when it’s high tide. Larry Swanson, interim dean of the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at Stony Brook University, said the cause of the problem is the disruption of sediment due to a combination of rising sea levels and homeowners building sea walls to protect their property. “Long Beach is a spit that needs sediment supplied from the erosion of the bluffs of Nissequogue,” he said. “There are places where the supply is somewhat diminished to maintain sufficient elevation, perhaps where currents are stronger than elsewhere water can overflow.” Photo by Rita J. Egan

With Tropical Storm Fay heading towards Long Island, County Executive Steve Bellone (D) said Long Island was expecting rainfall through 3 a.m.

Bellone urged residents to “stay alert” and “secure any loose objects to prevent damage.” He also suggested that people avoid travel and not to attempt to drive over a flooded road.

Residents who want to report outages can text OUT to 773454 (or PSEGLI). Those who can get online can report the outage to PSEGLINY.com or call (800) 490-0075.

The viral numbers continued to remain within the range of their recent low-infection pattern.

Among 6,245 residents who received tests, 62 of them tested positive, for a rate of 1 percent. That brings the total for the county who have tested positive since the beginning of the pandemic to 41,711.

The county had 20,301 residents who tested positive for the antibody but who hadn’t had a prior test for the virus.

Hospitalizations rose by two to 54, while the number of people in Intensive Care Unit beds declined by 1 to 10.

Hospital bed occupancy was at 70 percent overall and at 60 percent for ICU beds.

One person died in the last day, increasing the total of losses for families, neighbors and communities to 1,992.

A dozen people were discharged from the hospital in the last day.

Next week, residents can pre-register for antibody tests at three locations. They need to call (833) 433-7369.

Bellone urged the legislature to allow voters to consider two ballot measures that would allow the county to use up to $50 million of funds to plug the budgetary shortfall created by the economic collapse triggered by the lockdown.

“To address this fiscal crisis, we should do everything we possibly can to avoid two things: laying off essential workers and adding significant new tax burdens on our homeowners during the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression,” Bellone said on a conference call with reporters.

While some environmental groups have opposed the moves, Bellone said neither measure would “take a dime away from existing environmental programs” and suggested that they were “common sense measures” designed to avoid increasing taxes or laying off essential employees.

The county has to create a budget, which Bellone hopes includes financial help at the federal level, to close a gap that could be as high as $839 million by September.