Life after Hurricane Sandy

Since the Rockaway peninsula residents experienced unprecedented property damage due to Hurricane Sandy I was interested to see what changes had taken place in the marsh. Strangely, all of the massive piles of wood (and other) debris that accumulated from our many volunteer cleanup efforts over the past two years…were completely gone. Not a remnant lay in sight. But where did it all go?

The police had set up a checkpoint on the main boulevard along the peninsula. So instead of going through the hassle of driving through slow-moving traffic, we walked along the shoreline to reach the marsh.

Looking south from the bay side you can see there is a new channel, which hopefully will allow the marsh to flood more easily during high tides. The original channel (not pictured) is now much wider and deeper, which means there are now two channels into the marsh from the bay.

Looking north toward the bay. The dunes that acted as a flood barrier are now much flatter. And the new channel is visible from here.

These channels (above and below) are also viewed looking north.

The next three images show a landscape that is unrecognizable due to the absence of the many piles of debris that disappeared during the recent hurricane.

This area on the west side of the marsh might be where some of our collected debris got transferred to.

High of 52 °F | Humidity (avg) 52% | Wind @ 16 mph (NW) | High Tide 5.2 ft. @ 10:59 AM | Moon 86% visible.

High tides flooded life into the marsh

This morning we found the marsh completely flooded. And the tide was rushing out to the bay.

High of 66 °F | Humidity (avg) 77% | Wind @ 8 mph (ESE) | High Tide 6.5 ft. @ 10:25 AM | Moon 8% visible.

CUNY students clean up!

Professor Kathleen from CUNY brings her oceanography students out to Rocky Point Marsh to make their own observations of the local ecology. We then engage in a good old-fashioned clean up.

This is the first time I've seen a sea star on this shoreline.

Professor Kathleen and Tony Luscombe, NPS Biological Technician meet with the students afterwards.

Professor Kathleen and Tony Luscombe.

This may be a juvenile northern brown snake (Storeria d. dekayi), another marsh resident we were pleased to meet.

High of 55 °F | Humidity (avg) 44% | Wind @ 9 mph (SSW) | High Tide 5.9 ft. @ 6:27 AM | Moon 8% visible.

Your Park, Your Health cleanup

Sheridan Roberts, NPS Internship Coordinator, organized a marsh clean up crew of Your Park, Your Health interns.

High of 95 °F | Humidity (avg) 63% | Wind @ 14 mph (WNW) | High Tide 5.5 ft. @ 12:24 PM | Moon 24% visible.

Rocky Point Marsh Locals

Photographs by Frank De Sisto. You may see more of his beautiful work at frankdesisto.com.

Brant Goose

American Redstart

Horseshoe Crab

Monarch Butterfly

Common Merganser

Northern Mocking Bird

Great Egret

Willet

Rose

Black-throated Green Warbler

Life at the Marsh

    Photography by Francois Portmann.

Horseshoe crabs

Killifish

Spotted Sandpiper (?)

Willets

Brandt, Laughing Gulls, Herring Gulls 

Common Tern

Rocky Point Marsh at high tide

Photograph by Frank De Sisto.

High of 59 °F | Humidity (avg) 87% | Wind @ 6 mph (ESE) | High Tide 5.9 ft. @ 7:36 AM | Moon 98% visible.

Plover Exclosures

Tony, Moshe, Genie, Stewart, and Kim-Nora quickly build exclosures around plover nests.

High of 69 °F | Humidity (avg) 81% | Wind @ 6 mph (South) | High Tide 5.2 ft. @ 3:59 PM | Moon 93% visible.