Matt Long poked around the sooty ground in front of the charred remains of his home of 15 years.
Nothing inside survived the post-Hurricane Sandy fire that ravaged the beachfront hamlet of Breezy Point, New York. Long and his wife, Mary, were trying to salvage the only keepsakes they could: octagonal stones, each six inches across. One bore the handprint of 10-year-old Grace, the other was made by 8-year-old Emily.
The house on Gotham Walk and 110 others were destroyed by fire on that stretch of peninsula on the southwestern tip of New York City’s Queens borough, about 10 miles by air from John F. Kennedy International Airport.
“It’s awful,” said Long, 46, a former firefighter who was nearly killed when a bus making an illegal turn slammed into his bicycle in 2005. “There’s a lot of history in this place, and now it’s all gone.”
Mary, 38, stood on what used to be the family’s front stoop and wiped away tears. The neighborhood nicknamed the “Irish Riviera” was unrecognizable.