34 The Queens Courier • ANNIVERSARY • juLY 2, 2015 for breaking news visit www.queenscourier.com 30th ANNIVERSARY Looking back on Hurricane Sandy By Alina Suriel The hardest hit communities in Queens were clustered among its coastal neighborhoods. Some No one will ever be able to forget Hurricane are just regaining economic stability today nearly Sandy, one of the largest natural disasters ever three years after the storm, which destroyed or seen in New York City. damaged an estimated 305,000 homes in New New Yorkers were left to contend with loss York state and cost businesses around $6 billion. of human life as well as billions of dollars in Beachside residents in the Rockaways, damage after the storm, which made landfall on Howard Beach and Breezy Point were horrified Oct. 29, 2012. While New York City alone had to see their homes destroyed by flooding and a death toll of 41, CNN reported that at least electrical fires. More than 100 homes caught 92 people lost their lives in the United States fire during the storm in Breezy Point, and first as a whole. Governor Andrew Cuomo said the responders were so inundated with emergency storm cost the state $32.8 billion in repair and calls that no help came to those trying to call restoration costs, with $15 million spent in New 911. Flooding in Howard Beach reached up to York City. 5 feet, both inside residential basements and THE COURIER/FILE PHOTOS outdoors on the Crossbay Boulevard. Homes destroyed during Hurricane Sandy have left a last mark on these communities, as some have been left abandoned ever since. The number of abandoned homes in New York State took a 50 percent increase after the storm, reaching over 16,000 in 2014. As resources dwindled in the days immediately after the hurricane, gas shortages raged through the city. The supply at local gas stations was supplemented with emergency gas trucks to placate long lines of people waiting for their turn at the pump, and electrical power outages ensured that many were in the dark once they returned home.
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