Hurricane Gloria Hits the Hamptons In 1985

With all the hysteria about Irene, I dug up my photos from the last big hurricane to hit Long Island: Gloria in 1985. I was living in East Hampton, New York, which was in the Northeast Quadrant (most severe) of the storm, which Wikipedia says "produced Category 3 winds across Long Island".  I had never before (or since) seen the ocean like this--the pictures don't really do it justice:

Fortunately, the storm hit at low tide so storm surge wasn't too much of an issue, but that parking lot above was usually well back from the ocean, but here the sea was washing over the parking lot.

It took me only 15 minutes to drive down to the ocean, but a couple hours to get home:

The next day the weather was beautiful, but the beach was just about wiped clean:

And there was pretty severe damage too:

The electrical power on the east end, by LILCO in those days, was always terrible and unreliable, and we were without power (IIRC) for more than a week.  I was working for Bran Ferren in those days, and we spent a day or so getting a generator up and running--we were about to connect it when the power finally came back on. 

More pictures here.