 The Suleiman al-Halabi neighborhood of Aleppo, Syria, is now under full army control, according to state media. Heavy damage can be seen on Tuesday, October 30. Click through these photos from October; also see September photos from the conflict.  The Armenian Surp Kevork Church (Saint George Church) in Aleppo shows damage on Tuesday from a fire that broke out during fighting between rebel fighters and Syrian government forces.  The streets are littlered with rubble from a building in Aleppo on Tuesday.  A Syrian rebel fighter looks at smoke billowing from a bus that caught fire after a regime sniper allegedly shot at it in Aleppo on Sunday, October 28.  A Syrian rebel fighter aims through a hole in the wall that overlooks a position held by troops loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Sunday.  Commander Abu Sleiman looks at the pro-Syrian government forces' position prior to an attack in Aleppo on Saturday, October 27. The latest reports of violence saw each side accuse the other of violating the conditions of a cease-fire called over religious holiday Eid al-Adha.  A Syrian rebel interrogates a handcuffed and blindfolded man suspected of being a pro-regime militiaman after he was detained by the Free Syria Army in Aleppo on Friday, October 26.  Syrian rebels take position Friday in a classroom at an empty school to observe the movement of regime forces nearby in Aleppo.  Syrian rebels run to take position in the Bustan al-Basha district in Aleppo on Friday.  Smoke rises from a gas station following a mortar attack as Syrian women walk by on a rainy day in Aleppo on Thursday, October 25.  A member of the Free Syrian Army watches for snipers during fighting against pro-government forces in Idlib Governorate on Thursday.  A family crosses a street flooded by heavy rains in Aleppo, Syria, on Thursday.  Syria drivers attempt to drive through a flooded street in Aleppo, Syria on October 25. The Syrian military and the country's main rebel force have agreed to halt combat operations starting Friday morning for the Muslim holiday weekend, but both also reserved the right to respond to attacks.  Members of the Free Syrian Army patrol an area under their control, as they advance on pro-government forces in Harem town, Syria on October 25.  People crowd around a bakery in the Salaheddin district of Aleppo, Syria, on October 25,  Civilians carry their belongings along a street strewn with garbage and debris following fighting between Syrian government troops and rebel fighters in the Salaheddin district of Aleppo, Syria, on October 25.  The Syrian Arab News agency (SANA) reported that a car bomb in the Tadamon neighborhood of Damascus, Syria, killed six people and injured 20 on Wednesday, October 24.  Cars destroyed by the car bomb explosion in Damascus on Wednesday.  Smoke rises after Syrian government forces shelled the outskirts of Atareb, Syria, on Wednesday.  A family drives through Atareb, Syria, which was recently shelled by Syrian government forces, on Wednesday.  Relatives of Syrian detainees who were arrested for participating in protests against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime wait in front of a police building for detainees to be released in Damascus on Wednesday. The Syrian government said it released a total of 290 prisoners who had not been involved in homicides.  A Syrian woman, displaced by the ongoing violence and living along a street in Aleppo, on Tuesday, October 23.  A woman sits on the sidewalk of a debris strewn street in Aleppo, Syria, on October 23.  A rebel fighter looks towards the crossroads, destroyed during fighting between government and rebel forces, in the Salaheddin district of Aleppo, Syria on October 23.  Rebel fighters have lunch in the old sector of the northern city of Aleppo, on October 23. Violence raged across war-torn Syria, a watchdog organization said, dimming hopes of a cease-fire for this week's Muslim Eid al-Adha as proposed by UN-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi.  A shopkeeper clears the rubble from in front of his store in the old sector of Aleppo.  A member of the Free Syrian Army flees sniper shots from pro-government forces in Salqin, Syria, on Monday, October 22.  Members of the Free Syrian Army celebrate on a tank that belonged to pro-government forces after they took over the site from them early Monday in Salqin.  A member of the Free Syrian Army celebrates on the captured tank.  Syrian army soldiers run for cover during clashes with rebel fighters in the Karam al-Jabal neighborhood of Aleppo on Saturday, October 20.  Syria youths react following an airstrike by Syrian government forces in Maaret al-Numan on Thursday, October 18. Syrian regime warplanes launched a new wave of strikes on the northwestern town, seized by rebels last week, an AFP correspondent reported.  A wounded Syrian boy is carried to the hospital following Thursday's airstrike in Maaret al-Numaan.  A Syrian rebel fighter mans an anti-aircraft heavy machine gun as he heads to the frontline in al-Bab near Aleppo on Wednesday. October 17. Rebels downed a helicopter in fierce fighting Wednesday with troops seeking to retake a key Syrian town, a watchdog said.  Syrian rebel fighters on Wednesday ride a motorcycle in Maaret al-Numan, an area under the control of rebel fighters in the northwestern Idlib province.  A Syrian rebel fighter holds a gun as he guards a post during clashes with government forces in Aleppo on Wednesday.  A handout photo from the Shaam News Network shows smoke rising after a Syrian Air Force fighter jet fired missiles at the suburbs of the northern province of Idlib, Syria, on Tuesday, October 16. Click through the gallery to view images of the war-torn country in October. See photographs from September.  Members of the Free Syrian Army check for snipers in the old part of Aleppo, Tuesday.  Damaged buildings are seen after they were fired upon by a Syrian government forces near the northern province of Idlib, Tuesday.  A Syrian man walks past destroyed buildings following shelling by regime forces in Aleppo on Monday, October 15.  A Free Syrian Army fighter climbs under barbed wire as he trains at their camp in Syria's northwestern province of Idlib in an area under the control of rebel fighters on Monday.  A young fighter climbs along a rope as he trains at a Free Syrian Army camp in Syria's northwestern province of Idlib on Monday.  Syrian rebels take cover during clashes with regime forces at the historic Umayyad Mosque in the old city of Aleppo hours before the Syrian army retook control of the complex on Sunday, October 14.  A Syrian rebel walks inside a burnt section of the Umayyad Mosque. Opposition activists reported that the 12th-century mosque was set afire during heavy fighting on Saturday, October 13.  A Syrian opposition fighter stands near a post in Aleppo on Thursday, October 11.  Syrians carry a wounded girl into a hospital in Aleppo on Thursday.  A heavily armed Syrian opposition fighter stands near a post in Aleppo on Thursday.  A Syrian man walks through rubble in Aleppo on Thursday.  A Syrian man and boy ride a horse cart in Aleppo on Thursday.  Smoke billows from buildings following shelling by government forces in Aleppo on Thursday.  Syrian people carry bread as they walk in the streets of Aleppo on Thursday.  Bodies of Syrian civilians lie in the back of a truck outside a hospital following shelling by Syrian government forces during clashes with opposition fighters in Aleppo on Thursday.  Syrian civilians walk in front of damaged buildings in Aleppo on Thursday.  Syrian opposition fighters walk in the streets of Aleppo on Thursday.  Syrian government forces take cover during clashes with rebel fighters at the Karam al-Jabal neighborhood in Aleppo on Thursday.  A Syrian opposition fighter flashes the sign for victory as he guards a post with his comrades in Aleppo on Thursday.  A Syrian man mourns the death of his father, who was killed during a government attack in Aleppo on Wednesday, October 10.  Syrian youths walk past graffiti in the rebel-held city of Minbej on Wednesday.  A Syrian rebel fighter holds a cigarette and prayer beads in Aleppo on Tuesday, October 9.  A Syrian man carries the body of his 5-year-old son, Mohammed Mustafa, outside a hospital after shelling by Syrian government forces in Aleppo on Tuesday.  An injured Syrian woman rides to a hospital after an airstrike by regime forces in Aleppo on Tuesday.  A Syrian rebel commander prays in a damaged mosque during clashes with government forces on Tuesday in Aleppo.  A rubble-filled street is seen during clashes between rebel fighters and Syrian government forces in the Saif al-Dawla district of Aleppo on Tuesday.  Relatives wheel a injured boy outside a hospital on Tuesday in Aleppo.  A Syrian rebel fighter takes position inside a house in Aleppo during clashes with government forces on Tuesday.  A Syrian man watches an army fighter jet flies over Aleppo on Monday, October 8.  A Syrian army fighter jet flies over the northern city of Aleppo on Monday.  A wounded Syrian rebel fighter holds his blood-stained hands as he receives treatment at a hospital near the frontline in the city of Aleppo on Monday, October 7.  Abdul Razzak from the Aleppo News talks on a walkie talkie in Aleppo on Monday.  Syrian rebels take up positions inside a building during clashes with government forces in Aleppo on Saturday, October 6.  Syrian members of the Al-Saiqa rebel brigade clean weapons on Saturday before going to the front line in Aleppo.  A Syrian rebel runs across a heavily damaged street to dodge sniper fire during clashes on Saturday.  Syrian rebels patrol a neighborhood in Aleppo on Friday, October 5.  A Syrian demonstrator shouts during an anti-regime protest in Aleppo on Friday. Tensions rippled across Turkey a day after Syrian shells struck a Turkish border town and killed five people.  A Syrian rebel takes position during clashes with government forces in Aleppo on Friday.  An injured Free Syrian Army fighter rests after receiving treatment at Dar al Shifa hospital in Aleppo on Thursday, October 4.  A child covers his wounds from a Syrian army sniper at Dar al Shifa hospital on Thursday.  A Free Syrian Army fighter cries after one of his friends was injured in fighting with government forces outside the Dar El Shifa hospital on Thursday.  A Dar El Shifa worker cleans the floor outside the hospital in Aleppo on Thursday.  Syrian rebel fighters look at a multirocket launcher in Tal Abyadh, a Syrian town close to the Turkish border, on Thursday.  Rebels climb the stairs of a destroyed building Thursday in Tal Abyadh.  Smoke rises from the explosion area after several Syrian shells crashed inside the town of Akcakale in Turkey, killing at least five people on Wednesday, October 3. It wasn't the first deadly cross-border incident between the two neighbors during the 18-month-long uprising in Syria.  A police officer is injured in Wednesday's attack on Akcakale in Turkey's Sanliurfa province.  Three car bombs destroyed the area around a military officers' club and a hotel in Aleppo, Syria, on Wednesday. At least 40 people were killed and 90 wounded, most of them soldiers, a monitoring group said.  Car bomb explosions on Wednesday left a crater in the ground.  A nurse helps treat a 7-year-old girl who's neck was badly wounded by shrapnel at the Dar Al Shifaa hospital in Aleppo on Monday, October 1.  Friends lay a rebel fighter on a gurney after he was shot in the chest during heavy battles in the Midan neighborhood on Monday. See photographs from September.                                                                                      
(CNN) -- An array of explosives, from shells to barrel bombs, fell on Syrian cities in another day of bloodshed Thursday, according to activists fighting to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad. The Local Coordination Committees accused the government of using "vacuum bombs." CNN cannot independently confirm the claims because the Syrian government has limited access to international journalists. Damascus has not commented on the accusations. Read more: Who is arming the Syrian conflict? Also known as thermobaric explosives, they are effective at spreading destruction through urban areas, according to military experts. The LCC also repeated claims that the government used cluster bombs.   Young Syrian amputee's story  Iran behind drone attacks in Syria?  U.N. High Commissioner speaks on Syria  Airstrikes pound suburbs of Damascus At least eight people died Thursday, according to opposition activists. The early reports follow a week of grim tolls, including 121 reported dead Wednesday and 163 on Tuesday. More than 32,000 people have died in the 19-month-old Syrian conflict, according to the Center for Documentation of Violations in Syria, an opposition group that tracks fatalities. International diplomacy appeared to remain stagnant as Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov repeated Moscow's complaint Thursday that Syria's oppositional factions offer no centralized leadership to negotiate with. United Nations envoy for Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, attemped a cease-fire this week, but it never took hold. Oppositions groups reported the sound of shells and explosive barrels thundering across Damascus on Thursday. In the suburbs, gunfire mixed with shelling as the opposition Free Syrian Army battled government forces, according to the LCC. The group also reported explosions and shelling in Daraa, Deir Ezzor and Idlib, where it claimed cluster bombs were used. Reports by a second opposition group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, corroborated shelling in and around Damascus and in Idlib.   |
11/01/2012
Rebels: Syria using 'vacuum bombs'
The inside story of Breezy Point's terrible night
 David Friedman / NBC News Neighbors Bob Reilly, left, and Jim McGovern embrace among the burned-out remains of their Breezy Point, N.Y., homes on Wednesday. By Bill Dedman, NBC News BREEZY POINT, N.Y. — As Hurricane Sandy turned the streets of this community into raging rivers on Monday evening, one company of volunteer firefighters ditched their rescue boats and sought refuge in the community center. Inside they found another bunch of volunteer firefighters, also stranded by rising water, who asked, "Are you here to rescue us?" That was shortly before 70-mph winds blew embers the size of baseballs through the heart of this close-knit community on the Rockaway Peninsula in New York City's Queens borough. Interviews with residents and firefighters on Wednesday provided a more complete account of how the disaster unfolded in this beachside town when Sandy blasted ashore Monday evening. In a community where firefighters are demigods, where a memorial at the end of the point honors more than 30 residents who lost their lives at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, three companies of volunteer firefighters were overwhelmed by flooding and an inferno that destroyed more than 100 houses. Yet they fought the elements all night, saving many people and protecting houses on the perimeter of the burn zone, including the home of a 9/11 widow. The idyllic beachfront town of Breezy Point, N.Y., suffered through 9/11 and a devastating jet crash nearby. But this tight-knit community is determined to carry on. NBC's Rehema Ellis reports. When the water hit about 5:30 p.m., quickly disabling the fire engines and ambulances of the Rockaway Point Fire Department, its volunteers abandoned their firehouse. But when a call came in to rescue a wheelchair-bound elderly woman trapped in a flooded house, Lt. Jimmy Morton and five of his men put on their wetsuits and headed out in two motorboats — a 14-foot inflatable Zodiac and a 15-foot fiberglass Wheeler, steaming up the road in the darkness. Breezy Point residents search for the past, look to the future The Breezy Point peninsula was inundated, the waters of the Atlantic Ocean merging with the waters of Jamaica Bay. Electrical transformers arced and sparked in the sky. Streets were disjointed as entire blocks of houses were shifted off their foundations. The winds blew 3-foot waves into the boats. Debris wrapped around the propellers. Finally they had to turn back, ditching their boats at the community center, crawling up a ladder and through a window to safety. They still don't know what happened to the woman in the wheelchair. Inside the community center, known as the Clubhouse, the Rockaway Point crew found 20 firefighters from the Point Breeze Volunteer Fire Department, who had abandoned their own firehouse next door when it flooded. They were tending to about 20 people, mostly elderly and disabled. All were huddled on a stage where schoolchildren usually put on summer plays, with rising water lapping just a few inches below the lip of the stage.  David Friedman / NBC News Chairs sit on the elevated stage of The Clubhouse, where Point Breeze Volunteer Fire Chief Marty Ingram and fellow firefighters huddled with rescued residents to escape rising floodwaters from Hurricane Sandy. The Point Breeze fire chief, Marty Ingram, a retired Air Force helicopter pilot, had just finished leading the group in a prayer, an Our Father in the candlelight, when the Rockaway Point firefighters arrived. A glow in the sky  David Friedman / NBC News Point Breeze Volunteer Fire Chief Marty Ingram. It was about 8:30, just before high tide, when they first noticed a glow in the sky — a fire on the ocean side of town in the knotted area of tightly grouped houses known as the Wedge, where the streets are as wide as sidewalks, the lots only 20 by 43 feet, the houses seven to 10 paces wide. Breezy Point: 'Whatever is not flooded is on fire' Glenn Serafin was one of the first to see the flames, just a few doors down from his back window on Atlantic Avenue. He had been tending his pump, ignoring repeated phone calls from the community safety office insisting that everyone evacuate. He was expecting a few feet of water in his basement, as had happened in previous hurricanes, but he allows that "my thinking was flawed." He took a nap about 6:30 p.m., but was awakened by water in his basement, which had risen neck high. Then the electrical outlets started popping from the salt water, and he heard the rush of water moving up the street. Then, from his back window, he spotted the fire, in a row of bungalows built in 1921, just behind the larger beachfront house of Rep. Bob Turner (who got his job after Anthony Weiner lost his for sending nude photos and risque text messages). The fire leaped to the congressman's house, then to the house next door, where an older lady has kept a parrot for 50 years, the one that entertains children by repeating some choice words it learned from her dockworker husband. Then it jumped again and again, driven by the powerful southeast wind. Read more Sandy coverage on NBCNews.com Everyone knows everyone in the Wedge, often hanging out together at the Sugar Bowl beachfront bar. When a friend once asked Serafin, 'Do you know Alice" he replied, "Oh, yes. She's my wife's brother's wife's brother's wife." The people here own the houses, but not the land. They live in a gated co-op, some here full time, but most, like Serafin, staying mainly in the summer. A bungalow sells for $350,000, a larger house up to $800,000 or a million, in the overheated New York real estate market, but these are mostly middle-class families, heavily Irish-Catholic, enjoying a unique community nicknamed the Irish Riviera. The cars pushed around by the waves carried window stickers from Holy Cross and Georgetown. At the end of each block, the water lapped over shrines to Mary and Joseph. At the swamped Clubhouse, the firefighters could see a firestorm of embers driven by the winds, a volcano erupting toward them in a hurricane. The smoke drove more people out of their houses, even those who had been safe on second floors. Devastated NY community built by firefighters burned beyond their reach Across a flooded parking lot, Jack O'Meara and his wife, Aileen, were waving flashlights to alert the firefighters. The men from Rockaway got back into their boats, dodging concrete flower pots in the streets. These men -- Michael Valentine, Brandon Reilly, Brian Doyle, Michael Kahlau and Jimmy Morton -- went back and forth, pulling in family after family, including the O'Mearas, along with their children, John and Trish, and their two cats, Leon and Bright. The firefighters plucked more people from Olive Walk ("Life is good," the sign says) and Roosevelt Walk ("walk softly"). Now the firefighters were worried about the embers setting fire to the wooden roof of the Clubhouse, which was starting to fill with smoke. After a third Our Father, they returned to the Point Breeze firehouse and were finally able to get their fire engines started. They began using them to ferry the waterlogged band at the Clubhouse to a more-secure shelter at the flood-damaged St. Thomas More Roman Catholic Church. Breezy Point, N.Y., suffered devastating losses as a result of Sandy. NBC's Mara Schiavocampo reports. The community's third company of volunteers, 10 men from the Volunteer Fire Department of Roxbury at the other end of the point, also saw the glow from the fire, but they, too, were in no position to respond. They were on the second floor of their firehouse, driven upstairs by the flood. Their fire trucks sat in four feet of water. All the radios were down, the phones dead. A fire marshal whose family's home is in the Wedge, Kieran Burke, said it was about an hour, after he first saw the glow and smoke, before anyone began fighting the fire. Even then, until about 11 p.m., he said, there was only one hose directed at it. Slideshow: Sandy slams East Coast The assistant chief on scene from the New York Fire Department, A.C. Pfeifer, the same first chief to arrive at the World Trade Center on 9/11, said the department came as soon as it was called, though travel on the peninsula was slow in the high water. The timetable will all be sorted out in the investigation, but what's sure is that the city firefighters found an inferno, with at least 20 homes ablaze by the time they arrived. Telephone poles were on fire. Sinkholes opened up in the sandy soil, swallowing cars. Hydrants were hard to find under the seawater and had no water pressure, so the men "drafted" ocean water. Through six alarms, with nearly 300 firefighters, they were able to do little more than hold the edges of the fire. Holding the line at a widow's home Slideshow: Surviving Sandy, twice When the sun came up on Tuesday, the Sugar Bowl bar was gone. Kieran Burke stood where his family's home had been. The congressman's house was burned to the ground, its white metal railing decorating a clump of debris at the edge of burn zone. No one's quite sure what happened to the parrot. But the house of Sheila Scandole, the 9/11 widow, remained, scarred but standing, staring out at the beach and the now-calm Atlantic Ocean beyond. More Sandy coverage from NBCNews.com:
|
'We'll figure out a way': Breezy Point looks ahead
 David Friedman / NBC News Bob Reilly, left, and his son, Bobby, raise a flag in front of the burned-out Wedge section of Breezy Point, N.Y. on Wednesday. By Miranda Leitsinger, NBC News BREEZY POINT, N.Y. -- A wife's handmade pottery jars, a son's metal fire truck, a father's golf clubs. Those were just a few of the items recovered Wednesday as hundreds of residents of this tight-knit seaside community returned to reconnect with friends and pick over the remains of flooded and burned homes left behind by Hurricane Sandy. The storm delivered two punishing blows to the community founded more than a century ago by Irish immigrants. First it sent floodwaters roaring through its streets and into its homes, then sparked an inferno that claimed more than 100 houses nestled side-by-side on tiny lanes of sand. Despite its idyllic setting, tucked between the Atlantic Ocean and a bay at the southeast corner of Long Island, Breezy Point has not escaped the world's cares: More than 30 of its residents died in the 9/11 attacks, many of them police or firefighters. A plane also crashed further up the island in November 2001, killing everyone onboard plus a few bystanders on the ground. Breezy Point: 'Whatever is not flooded is on fire' "I think it's a community where there's tragedy and triumph," said Fire Chief Marty Ingram, 62, whose Point Breeze Volunteer Fire Department battled the blazes from late Monday night until near dawn on Tuesday. "We're going to get through this." Slideshow: Sandy slams into East Coast The supportive nature of the community was on full display Wednesday. There were some laughs to lighten the somber mood, including a few jokes about upscaling the Sugar Bowl, a popular watering hole on the beach that was flattened in the storm. One woman rejoiced at finding her margarita mixer. Neighbors gave and received comforting hugs. Among those who were taking stock and thinking ahead:  David Friedman / NBC News Roland Wertz, after visiting his burned out home in Breezy Point, N.Y. on Wednesday. Roland Wertz, 69, collected some pottery jars made by Heidi, his wife of 50 years, from the ashes of his home in an area known as The Wedge. Breezy Point was under a mandatory evacuation order, and most residents left on Sunday believing they would return home in a few days. "We just figured, miracles of miracles, maybe (it) would be sidestepped" by the storm, he said, tears streaming down his face as he cradled the jars in his hands. Wertz, who was joined by his son and two grandsons in a search for missing keepsakes, said he and his wife felt instantly welcomed when they moved to Breezy Point nine years ago. "I moved here and didn't know anybody and got cancer, and people lined (up) on my door," he said, his voice trembling. "Total strangers. The time my wife was in the hospital, people came, flowers waiting on the stoop when we came home. Hardworking, good people." His son, Ira Nachamie, 54, added that Breezy Point was where the extended family gathered for the holidays: "This is where we come to be a family," he said. But Wertz said he didn't think he and his wife would be coming back, and that many other neighbors also may not have the will or resources to rebuild. "In these walks, there are a lot of widows and widowers, that you know, had the Social Security, had a few bucks that they stuck away," he said. "Like a plane, they had enough fuel to get to their destination but you know no return trip. … Those are the people that are going to be the hardest hit."  David Friedman / NBC News Kieran Burke surveys the burned-out remains of his Breezy Point, N.Y., home. Kieran Burke, 40, was less than a mile from his childhood home that he now shares with his wife and 2-year-old son, when he saw flames Monday night. As a firefighter, and recently minted fire marshal for an engine company in Brooklyn, he felt he had to do something. He rushed to the neighborhood, at first not realizing his own home was threatened. As the night wore on, the threat became reality: His house was in the last row of those on the southern edge to go up in flames. Devastated NY community built by firefighters burned beyond their reach "This is heartbreaking," he said. "Being a fireman, it's even more heartwrenching because, you know, you're used to being on the other end of this, you're used to being on the end where you help people. And even Monday night, my first reaction was to get over here and help somebody. I had no idea my house was in peril." A chimney is now all that remains of Burke's home. He sifted through the charred remains, finding a few things to salvage: A memento from a trip to the Bahamas with his wife, some favorite beer from Hawaii and his son's metal fire truck. Gone were his fireman gear and his old fire department magazines, though firefighters found a steel beam he had saved from his time at Ground Zero. Slideshow: Surviving Sandy, twice Burke, who recalled playing kick the can with friends as a kid on the "sand lanes," as the walkways are called, said he is not harboring any thoughts of moving. "I'm not leaving," Burke said. "I firmly believe that within the next year you'll come back here and see a rebirth. … This is the type of the neighborhood where, when it's at its worst, it's at its best."  David Friedman / NBC News Friends Laurie Klein, right, and Lucille Dwyer embrace next to the burned-out remains of Dwyer's Breezy Point, N.Y. home Klein's home, several blocks away, was outside the fire zone but suffered severe flooding. Lucille Dwyer, 64, said she has alternated between crying, laughing and being angry over the fire that took her home of 23 years. She joked about losing her three Coach designer bags and her black-and-white marble bathroom, but she said she also is heartbroken. "I feel better that I saw it," she said of her home, not long after her adult son found his father's golf balls and clubs in the rubble. "It makes me feel like closure, that I can move on." Dwyer said she hadn't wanted to evacuate but her husband, Gerald, has cancer and needed to be close to medical care. They hadn't imagined they could lose their home, so they didn't take precious items, such as her mother's 70-year-old dining service, with them. Read more Sandy coverage on NBCNews.com "Sentimental things that mean a lot to you. Furniture's replaceable, clothes are replaceable. That's not," she said. "That's what hurt. … I have no memories." But, she quickly added: "I'll make new ones." Dwyer said she and her husband would look for temporary housing, since she believes it will be at least 18 months before they can return. "We wanted to live here," she said. "We loved being near the ocean and we had a lot of very good times. A lot of fun, a lot of good times, and that's why we're coming back."  David Friedman / NBC News George Donley, left, collects possessions from his flooded home in Breezy Point, N.Y., after Hurricane Sandy. George Donley, 63, walked with his daughter, CiaraGrace, and her husband through Breezy Point on their first trip back home, towing bags they intended to fill with clothes and keepsakes to take with them to temporary housing. Dooley broke down into tears after his daughter said she couldn't reach her home due to the devastation. Donley said another daughter, Julianna, had also experienced flooding in nearby Broad Channel, with 5 feet of water filling her home. "If you can help your kids then you at least feel good, you know. I can't even help them," Dooley said. "This is our entire life. We did everything here," Donley said.. "We grew up here." "I met my husband here," added CiaraGrace, 31, a deputy chief of staff for a local politician. "We got married down here." When they reached his home, which had been flooded, they found the ground floor in disarray but the upstairs intact. They joked after finding a bottle of "Irish Mist," a whiskey liquor, but also were shocked to see their furniture and front deck flung across the yards of their neighbors. George Donley also started thinking of the good times as he looked out the window, reminiscing about watching cruise ships pass by. He also chuckled as he recalled climbing on the roof of the destroyed Sugar Bowl bar, just in front of his home, to watch the end of summer parties, Breezy Point's self-styled Mardi Gras. Despite the harsh new landscape confronting them, the family said they would rebuild. "We'll figure out a way, we will," CiaraGrace said. "This is what we're just going to have to deal with. … We have to have a positive mindset so we can get through it. These things are just objects but our family is safe and that's the most important thing."  David Friedman / NBC News Bob Reilly: 'It's only right that we hang a flag again. That's what we do down here.' Bob Reilly, 58, hoisted a flag atop a pole on Breezy Point's promenade, trying to add a semblance of what the community looked like before Sandy. Flags, Fire Chief Ingram said, were typically posted throughout the community in honor of the 9/11 victims. "It's only right that we hang a flag again," Reilly said. "That's what we do down here. Everybody has flags on the block. … It looks beautiful. Fourth of July is some party down here." Reilly found a favored stone plaque reading "Royal Irish Constabulary" in the rubble of his home, a summer place that had collapsed after being partially burned, and spoke with a neighbor who also lost his house. "I didn't realize it was this bad," he said of the town he has called home for 30 years. "The homes are all in bad shape. It is beyond what I thought it was going to be. Everything is gone." His wife, Patti, 56, grew up next door. "There's nowhere like this," she said. "When everybody you know loses their home, it's too much." The idyllic beachfront town of Breezy Point, N.Y., suffered through 9/11 and a devastating jet crash. But this tight-knit community is determined to carry on despite being ravaged by Superstorm Sandy. NBC's Rehema Ellis reports. More Sandy coverage from NBCNews.com:
|
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)