Greenport businesses take on water as crews clear fallen trees caused by massive nor’easter

Well, that soaked! Residents and businesses began clearing debris and navigating flooded roads after a nor’easter battered the North Fork over the weekend.

Flooding was especially visible in Greenport, where water covered portions of downtown streets and crept into several businesses.

At Aldo’s Coffee Company on Front Street, co-owner Josh Sommer said water began entering the shop around 10 a.m. Saturday.

“The roads were pretty flooded up to the front door,” Mr. Sommer told The Suffolk Times Monday.

Mr. Sommer said experience has taught the business to prepare for exactly that kind of problem.

“Being that we’re in Greenport and we’ve been through this a lot, most things that are important are six inches off the ground,” he said.

Preston’s Chandlery on Main Street had a similar intrusion.

“It was just a couple inches, but nothing we haven’t seen before,” said Brendan Duffy, an employee.

The early fall storm delivered powerful winds, coastal flooding and scattered outages, sending water across low-lying roads, toppling trees and leaving highway crews with days of cleanup ahead.

Wind gusts topped out late Saturday and early Sunday, reaching 51 mph in Southold and 48 mph in Orient, according to News 12. Photos from across the North Fork showed rough surf, flooded roads and wind damage as the storm moved through Saturday

The storm also knocked out power to hundreds of North Fork homes. In New Suffolk, a fallen tree took down power lines and blocked Oak Road on Saturday.

It also scrambled what had been expected to be one of the busiest weekends on the North Fork’s fall calendar.

Organizers of the Bug Light Classic Regatta waited until Saturday before finally deciding to postpone the race until Oct. 10 at 1 p.m. The Reggae & Rum after-party, however, still went on at the American Legion in Greenport.

Greenport’s popular Maritime Festival had already been moved to Oct. 16-18 ahead of the storm. Mattituck High School’s memorial volleyball tournament honoring late coach Kelly Pickering was also postponed.

On Monday, Southold Highway Superintendent Dan Goodwin said there were still a number of trees and limbs entangled in power and communication wires.

Mr. Goodwin, who took a Suffolk Times reporter for a ride-around as the storm whipped in Saturday morning, said he had not seen significant damage to homes, with some of the most visible destruction coming from completely uprooted trees.

“There are also dozens and dozens of branches that were moved to the side of the road … but were maybe too large to hand load into a truck. We’re going back and getting a lot of those,” he said.

He could not yet estimate the town’s overtime and cleanup costs.

“It’s definitely costly,” he said.