Hurricane Earl: hurricane-force gusts likely on Long Island Friday
Hurricane Earl forecasts still have the storm brushing the East Coast from Cape Hatteras to Cape Cod. Some Long Island residents say they don't know what they should be doing to prepare.
Jay Farley, top, installs covers to a homeowner's oceanfront window in Atlantic Beach, N.C., Wednesday as hurricane Earl heads toward the East Coast.
Chuck Burton/AP
Montauk, N.Y.
On Wednesday, Ralph and Patricia Cusimano decided to haul out of the water their 50 foot power boat, “Polar Bear” just to be on the safe side as hurricane Earl starts its run up the mid-Atlantic Coast.
He has cause for caution. At 5 p.m. Wednesday, the National Hurricane Center said Earl had reintensified to a Category 4 storm with maximum sustained winds of 135 miles per hour. In addition, it issued tropical storm warnings from North Carolina to Sandy Hook, N.J. And it issued hurricane watch alerts for Woods Hole and Sagamore Beach in Massachusetts.
Tropical force winds are expected to hit the New Jersey coast starting on Friday morning as the storm accelerates northward. The latest forecasts still have Earl skimming the East Coast, with sustained tropical storm-force winds of at least 73 m.p.h. and hurricane-force gusts hitting eastern Long Island Friday afternoon.
That’s one of the reasons why two men are putting together plywood frames to cover the glass windows at the Martha Greene real estate office. And at the Cross Eyed Clam Bar & Grill, one of the chefs talked about having a hurricane party to get rid of food if the restaurant loses power.
But, for the most part, residents here – like many people on the East Coast, are in a state of limbo, waiting to see if Earl decides to listen to the weather forecasters and start to head out to sea. If that happens, Montauk will get some wind – which is nothing new around here – and prepare for Labor Day weekend.
“We don’t do anything about it until we know what’s going to happen,” says Tara Anfuso, who has lived in Montauk for 13 years.
