A Mighty Rain Causes Raging Waters

The remains of Tropical Storm Nicole battered Long Island like a hurricane as it moved through the area on its way to New England last week.

Northport's Main Street became flooded as it usually does in a heavy rainstorm. Catch basins and drywells were installed around the village several years ago but the system can only handle so much influx and on Friday the levels were reached. Water came over the sidewalk into businesses, even those like Gunther's Tap Room with a step-up entry.

Closer to the harbor, Northport Village's storm drains became clogged, mainly with the cardboard recyclables that had been put out by restaurant staff the night before for the scheduled pickup morning pickup. The result was a water level that hit 2 feet,  necessitating the closure of Woodbine Avenue from Scudder Avenue to Fox Lane.

By 7 a.m., Northport Highway Department Senior Groundsman Foreman Billy Forster had waded knee deep into the water to clear the drains on Woodbine Avenue using a steel garden rake. Whirlpools helped him to locate exactly where the drains were that needed to be cleared.

As Forster noted, it didn't help matters that the tide was coming in.

One person was seen bailing out a dinghy tied up at the village dock.

Farther south at Dickinson Avenue Elementary and Northport High School, according to maintenance workers, the parking lots were flooded and had to be pumped out mechanically.

The winds knocked trees down all over There were many power outages especially on Asharoken and Eaton's Neck. Most residential power was restored by 6 p.m.according to LIPA's storm outage map and Asharoken's tweet.