December 2012 - Parks & Recreation - 14

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Cove right through Waterford Beach,
essentially cutting the beach in half
or possibly off altogether to the public,
according to Waterford Environmental Planner Maureen Fitzgerald. At the
least, the dunes could be destroyed if
nothing is done, meaning waves will
push sand into Alewife Cove during every powerful wind storm and change
the area's ecology.
We are conﬁdent we can save the
dunes by moving some sand back to
the area, and then planting more vegetation on top of the dunes this spring.
The town has to get approval from the
state's environmental body, but hopefully that process will be fast. All is not
lost-I think we can build it back up
again.
-Brian Flaherty, Department
of Recreation and Parks,
Waterford, Connecticut

Long Beach, New York
The City of Long Beach Parks and Recreation Department is located on a barrier island off the south shore of Long
Island, New York. We have had a severe
impact to our community from Hurricane Sandy; FEMA, the National Guard,
and surrounding states have contributed to ensure our residents' safety and
are working to initiate the recovery effort. We have had no lights or heat for
one week, and a gas crisis in New York
is making the situation tougher.
Our recreation facilities have incurred water damage from coastal
ﬂooding; the Recreation Center was
ﬂooded and will require a large-scale
cleanup. Its pool ﬁltration system was
lost to ﬂooding as well as all of our
administrative equipment. All of the
city's playgrounds have been damaged
and almost all of the two-mile boardwalk is damaged.
On November 2, the Long Beach
Ice Arena and Long Beach Recreation
12

Parks & Recreation

New York City Department of Parks and Recreation forestry crews worked around
the clock after the storm. Here, Parkie Robert McCarthy and his crew, Robert
Kristofferson, Greg Russ, and George Salcedo remove a 50-inch diameter tree that
was resting on a house in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.

Center were utilized as a donation
center for the distribution of food and
clothing. Volunteers and Long Beach
Recreation workers are organizing
and distributing donations.
-Christopher L. Paggi,
Recreation Leader, City of
Long Beach, New York

New York City, New York
Things are getting back to normal
for us....we consider ourselves lucky
compared to so many others. The assessments are still coming in. As badly

| DECEMBER 2012 | WWW.NRPA.ORG

damaged as many of our parks were,
one of Sandy's lessons is that the city
is much better off ringed by waterfront parks, beaches, and wetlands
that absorb the initial energy of these
major storm events. The question facing us is how we can do a better job
of creating landscapes that are both
recreational and functional for stormwater management and that have the
ability to absorb and redirect storm
energy away from critical infrastructure. Landscape jiujitsu!
-Joshua Laird, NYC Parks

December 2012 - Parks & Recreation

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