Groton Long Point Wakes to the Damage From Hurricane Sandy

Residents of Groton Long Point returned after Hurricane Sandy and found fallen trees, downed power lines, flooded basements, beach sand washed over some of their yards and part of the stone retaining wall in the road.

"This is the worst storm I've seen in my 29 years of working here," said George Wolfe, a senior patrol office for Groton Long Point Police Department. "A lot of the roads are just not passable," he said. "We've got trees down in several locations, we've got power lines down in several locations, we've got utility poles in danger of falling down."

Duryea Drive and East Shore Avenue were blocked off and guarded by security. Along East Shore Drive, the sea wall had been blown apart by the surf and spread along the road. Sidewalks were in danger of collapsing, Wolfe said.

On South Shore Avenue, waves blew about a foot of beach sand onto the road and covered it. Groton Long Point has about 620 homes.

John Tuohy, who lives on East Shore and is president of the Groton Long Point Association, said the street probably took some of the worst damage from the store because of the sea wall. South Shore was also hit hard, he said.

 But he added, "All in all, I'm really very grateful. It could have been much worse, as bad as it looks right now."

He said no one was hurt. He added that fire departments were already working on pumping water out of 20 to 25 basements, and utility crews would also be in to get power back.

 "There's mostly cleanup damage," he said. "But no houses floated away."