Environment
'Much of the Beach Is Gone'
Fire Island, a beach community off the coast of Long Island, struggles in the wake of massive Sandy damage.
Hurricane Sandy was especially unkind to Fire Island, one of New York's most popular beach communities off the coast of Long Island. Most of the Island was underwater last week, and residents are just now being let back on shore to assess the damage. "Much of the beach is gone," Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) told reporters. "And the beach is what Fire Island is." Schumer said the Army Corps of Engineers would work to restore the beaches by the summer, using sand from dredging projects.
Many of the island's ocean-front homes were also battered or destroyed. As New York's Newsday reports: