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Sun’s out, but we’re still soaked

ERIN SCHULTZ PHOTO
Ms. Wilson’s yard as it appeared after last week’s deluge.

Somewhere under the vast expanse of muddy water covering half of her front lawn on Breakwater Road in Mattituck, Mary Lou Wilson has a large, nicely landscaped and very expensive pond.

“But I don’t know what I’m going to find under there now,” said Ms. Wilson, a 56-year-old mother of two, standing last Thursday beside a bench that last week’s deluge had carried nearly 150 feet across her yard. “I had koi fish in there, and I have no idea where they are.”

Ms. Wilson is only one of scores of North Fork residents still assessing property damage and wondering how to recover from the record-setting storm that dumped seven to 10 inches of rain from Riverhead to Orient Point last Monday and Tuesday.

“This past week’s weather was really a whopper,” said Mattituck resident Len Llewellyn, an observer for the National Weather Service since 1987. “This storm caused more damage due to flooding in basements and roadways than any storm I have seen in many years.”

As Southold Town police finally opened a section of Route 48 in Greenport —