Katonah- A group of 32 students and seven faculty members from The Harvey School spent an entire day on Saturday last weekend helping with the ongoing clean-up efforts at Breezy Point, a Queens, New York community hit particularly hard by the wrath of Hurricane Sandy in October.
Working in coordination with the Fraternal Order of Police of Carmel, the group from Harvey helped remove hardwood floors and wall insulation, carry medical supplies, and shovel sand from the homes that suffered from Sandy’s tremendous storm surge at Breezy Point.
One of the Harvey faculty, Upper School Head Phil Lazzaro, was proud of the efforts of the students. “They did an outstanding job completing a variety of tasks.” He said seeing the destruction first hand was an eye-opener. “We all now have a better understanding of the devastation the community is suffering, and as a result our experiences will help promote the idea of community service as a life-long endeavor on the part of our students.”
The geographical location of Breezy Point, situated on the western end of the Rockaway pennisula between Rockaway Inlet and Jamaica Bay on one side, and the Atlantic Ocean on the other, made it highly vulnerable to the extraordinary storm surge of the October hurricane. The massive flooding also made it impossible for firefighters to get to the fires that engulfed 100 houses.
