East Hampton has 19 election districts, and each one tells a story. Depending on where they live, voters formed two lines at East Hampton High School Tuesday night. Voters from District 14 reported waiting up to an hour that evening to cast their ballots, while for District 1 there was no line at all. The latter district encompasses neighborhoods south of the highway in East Hampton Village. The former district includes areas around Accabonac Road and Town Lane.

     The shorter lines for some districts may have been due to the fact that many people in them had voted by absentee ballot, according to Dinaz Kaprielian, a poll coordinator at the high school location. Longer lines probably pointed to a denser year-round population.

     Andreas Mejia waited in line for 30 minutes at the high school before being told he could not vote there and instead needed to cast his ballot at the Amagansett Firehouse. "They're just not coordinated in there," he said. "Why are there so many obstacles here, when in places like South America, you just go to a booth, press an electronic button and it's done?"

     Some voters, like Mr. Mejia, mistook Governor Cuomo's order to mean that they could vote by affidavit anywhere, instead of showing up at the place where they are registered, Ms. Kaprielian said, noting that an essential criterion to take advantage of the governor's order was that a person be "displaced." She added that she didn't allow "someone who had trouble walking" to vote by affidavit at her site even though he had traveled on foot for about a mile. "A good Samaritan gave him a ride to and from his correct polling place at the Neighborhood House," she said.

     Tyler Borsack, an East Hampton resident who voted at the high school, said the "old voting system" was more efficient. He described the optical scan system now in place as "taking a step backwards." He much preferred the curtained booths in which voters could flip down a switch and then pull the lever to cast their ballot. "The process was a lot faster," he said. Mr. Borsack said he voted for Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate for president, because his "vote wouldn't count in this state, anyway."

     Kim Borsack, his wife, said she voted for President Obama. "Romney lost me when he said he would get rid of Big Bird," she said, referring to Mitt Romney's comments about cutting funding to public television and public radio. "We have a 2-year-old. You've got to like Big Bird."

     Paul Jones, also a voter at the high school, believed the time he spent in line to vote for President Obama and Representative Tim Bishop was well worth it. "Waiting in line to vote for 30 minutes is nothing," Mr. Jones said. "It's like this every election here."

     Three scheduled poll workers did not show up at the high school, said Chaz Riggi, an inspector there, and at times, he found it difficult to effectively address the multitude of voter concerns.

     Ed Nash, a poll watcher at the Neighborhood House for the past six elections, echoed Mr. Riggi's concerns. He believes there was a record turnout this election, when on Tuesday night, almost 1,500 voters from three districts had filled in ballots at that location. Like most poll workers, Mr. Nash was on the job from 5 a.m. to at least 9 p.m. He said workers were "overwhelmed" at the height of voting during the mid-afternoon.

     Nancy Quinn of Long Beach, who voted at the Neighborhood House by affidavit, said poll workers were "very helpful and accommodating." Her house in Long Beach was completely destroyed, and she is staying with her son and daughter-in-law, Ian Quinn and Lara Goorland, at their summer residence in an East Hampton mobile home park. "We don't know when we will be able to return home," she said. "It looks like bombed out Berlin." She added, "My mother lived through the 1938 hurricane, and said Sandy was much worse."

             Things were comparatively quiet four hours before polls closed at the Amagansett Firehouse, where voters were in and out in less than five minutes, a contrast to earlier that afternoon, when all 24 chairs set aside for waiting voters were filled. Lynda Edwards, a poll coordinator at the site said she noticed "a heavy Democratic turnout." She looked forward to transporting the microchip from the voting machines to the Police Department in Wainscott, she said.

    Hurricane Sandy may have dissipated, but she still wreaks havoc in many people’s lives, especially those who need medical attention. More patients than usual are seeking to mend at Southampton Hospital and other East End medical centers.

    Marsha Kenny, director of marketing and public affairs at Southampton Hospital, said that since Sandy struck on Oct. 29 the hospital has been as busy as during summer months, and 20 percent busier than exactly one year ago. “After huge storms, we often see an increase in patients who weren’t wearing goggles during cleanup, or decided to go out and buy a chain saw,” Ms. Kenny said. “But fortunately we didn’t experience patients coming in due to catastrophic injuries this time around.”

    The hospital is certified for 125 beds, and between 80 and 90 of them were occupied as of Tuesday, according to Ms. Kenny. “It’s a full house.”

    Some of the patients, she said, were East End residents who “use medical equipment that needs to be plugged in at home.” She added, “We can’t discharge those people when they don’t have electricity at home. Where would they go?” She said the hospital is also helping people who can’t get to their regular dialysis centers because of the shortage of gasoline and other transportation problems.

    Anxiety and stress have led several patients to seek relief at the hospital, Ms. Kenny said, because “some people haven’t been able to get in touch with their relatives in the area.”

    Two babies, both girls, were born at the hospital during the storm. Ms. Kenny called them “hurricane babies,” and said that to her knowledge neither of them was named Sandy.

    Activity is up in virtually every unit in the hospital, including the intensive care unit and emergency room. “Communication is key,” she said on Tuesday, noting that the hospital has a storm/emergency plan in place and would be able to cope with even more patients who may come in as a result of yesterday’s northeaster. “Representatives from each department come together to meet regularly to report and say what their needs are.”

    Doctors at the hospital are doing their best to keep in touch with the patients’ regular physicians, Ms. Kenny said. Transferring patients to other hospitals and facilities, like the Hamptons Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing in Southampton, is not an option “because they’re full, too.”

    Keeping up with higher patient numbers along with the gasoline shortage and power outages at home has caused many hospital staff members, 55 to 60 percent of whom live west of Southampton, to spend nights at work. Ms. Kenny said they sleep on cots placed in various offices.

    The hospital ran on a generator during and shortly after the storm, but has been “on LIPA for several days now,” Ms. Kenny said.

    Kate Skinner, office manager at Wainscott Walk-In Medical Care, and Melinda Gould, a nurse at Meeting House Lane Medical Practice in Sag Harbor, said their clinics didn’t open on Oct. 29 and Oct. 30 because the phone lines were down and many employees didn’t have electricity at home. Ms. Gould’s clinic did not reopen until last Thursday.

    Since reopening, the two said it has been business as usual, with no increased patient traffic. “Patient flow is pretty much the same as it would have been absent Sandy,” Ms. Skinner said Monday evening, when the waiting room was half-full with 10 patients and their families. “If the weather were cooler, then we may have seen more sick people.”

    “Many South Fork residents who have lost power at home still have somewhere else,” Ms. Skinner said, “whether it’s a relative or a neighbor’s house that has power.” People have seen and heard about the devastation in New York City and New Jersey, she said, which might cause them to “think twice about whining about how things are out here.”

    With Sandy now a memory, people have begun to clean up and assess damages. As the claims pour in to the region’s insurance brokers, local brokers are in agreement about two things — the destruction caused by Sandy could have been far worse, but regardless, it will result in higher — perhaps much higher — premiums.

    On the positive side, Governor Cuomo’s office announced on Oct. 31 that the State Department of Financial Services has “informed the insurance industry that hurricane deductibles should not be triggered” for storm-related claims because Sandy did not have “sustained hurricane-force winds when it made land in New York.”

    “Many of the insurance companies have a deductible for all perils that they insure under the policy except for hurricanes,” said George Yates, president of Dayton, Ritz, and Osborne in East Hampton, last week. “Hurricanes typically have a higher deductible, which ranges anywhere from 2 to 5 percent of whatever you’re insuring the home for. If you have a $500,000 home, there may be a $25,000 hurricane deductible.” In other words, a homeowner could be responsible for the first $25,000 of repairs. “But that is only for hurricane wind,” Mr. Yates said.

     Flood damage, Mr. Yates said, is an excluded peril on all homeowners insurance policies, covered instead through the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s National Flood Insurance Program.

    By Thursday, three days after the hurricane-turned-post-tropical-storm roared across Long Island, many on the South Fork were still without electricity, but crews had already removed many fallen trees and the hamlets and villages of East Hampton and Southampton Towns, in contrast to western Long Island, Lower Manhattan, and the New Jersey coastline, were beginning to resemble their pre-Sandy selves.

    Reports of flooding, downed trees, and damage caused by wind — such as trees falling on houses or cars or shingles ripped from roofs — comprise the vast majority of calls to local insurance agencies.

    These reports, said Kim Vaughn of the B.D. Corwin Agency in Sag Harbor, where flooding was significant, are “pretty much in line” with expectations, or “probably less, because we’re lucky the storm didn’t hit us directly. It’s similar to last year, [with] a little more flooding,” she said, referring to Irene, which hit Long Island in late August 2011.

    A full assessment will be long in coming, however, given the inability of both brokers and clients to communicate with one another. With transportation an additional challenge, local insurance brokers anticipate a long wait for Sandy-related claims to be made and processed. Many second homeowners were still unaware late last week of what, if any, damage their properties on the South Fork had sustained.

    “We’ve had some of them calling us asking if we could go check their house and report back to them, because they don’t know and are very anxious about it,” Timothy Brenneman, managing director of Cook, Hall, and Hyde in East Hampton, said on Thursday afternoon. “We’ve done that on several occasions today already. My sense is, because of what’s going on in the city as well, there will be a long tail on this, where it may be literally weeks before we’re able to give a better assessment on the full extent of exactly what our clients have experienced.”

    Mr. Brenneman said that by Thursday afternoon his firm had taken 175 claims. “Those are the claims that have come directly to us,” he said. “We know some of our customers are going directly to the carriers as well. Because we don’t have access to e-mail or fax, we are not getting those acknowledgements. We suspect that that may be another 50 percent, or more, that have gone direct to the insurance companies.”

    The agency has approximately 10,000 clients on the East End of Long Island, said Leonard Scioscia, its president and chief executive officer. “We’re looking at 3 percent of them having some claim activity, some property damage significant enough to report a claim.”

    All things considered, said James Amaden of Amaden Gay Agencies in East Hampton, “we got pretty lucky, if you look at what happened to New Jersey.” At his agency, the claims process was underway and functioning smoothly Thursday.

    Claims are being expedited to the extent possible, and insurers’ pre-established “catastrophe teams” charged with handling such claims were readied in advance of the storm, said Mr. Brenneman.

    “Under normal circumstances, we would talk to our client, see if there was anything that we could do locally, and on that same call actually warm-transfer the call to the insurance company to make sure that the insurance company and the customer are talking to each other so that their claim is fully reported and expedited,” Mr. Brenneman said. “As a result of the communication issues today, we’re taking the information from the client and then calling the carrier on a separate call. In some cases, we’re asking if the client can help us by calling the company directly to facilitate it as well, because they can tell we’re challenged with communication just as they are.”

    Roughly 70 percent of the Cook agency’s client base is east of Riverhead, Mr. Brenneman said. With such a high percentage of customers in a vulnerable area, the impact on insurers could have been devastating. “Certainly, the fact that the storm took the turn that it did and really minimized the strong winds that we got out here, I would say it was less than what we thought it would be.”

    The increase in extreme-weather events around the country has fostered better preparation on the part of insurers. “Insurance companies have a way of spreading risk around,” said Mr. Scioscia. “They’ll take only the first part of a loss. It could be $10 million, $50 million, $2 billion, depending on how large the carrier is. Then they pass the rest of that loss on to a re-insurer. In essence, the insurance company will buy insurance on itself. So, they’ve gotten more sophisticated about that. Most insurance companies can withstand these types of losses. It winds up getting spread — around the world, really, in a global re-insurance mechanism, and they move on.”

    But another, contrary, effect of this upswing, said these brokers, will hurt policyholders in the form of higher premiums and, possibly, even a lack of availability.

    Insurance companies, Mr. Yates said, are in the business of predicting future loss, and have to ensure that they properly reserve for such events. “I think that this event in the Northeast will certainly drive insurance rates up, and may drive them up significantly,” he said. “We already have an availability problem: Companies just don’t want to write any new policies in our area of Long Island. I think this will just exacerbate the situation.”

    Word quickly spread, at midday on Tuesday, that 10 gallons of gas could be had, free of charge, at W.F. McCoy on Montauk Highway in Amagansett. By 12:30 p.m., a line of about 20 vehicles stretched from the service station to Cross Highway, blocking access to parking outside Brent’s General Store. Within minutes, two police officers had placed traffic cones and parked their cars so as to maintain access to parking and order on the road. The intersection was snarled as the lunchtime rush descended on Brent’s.

    The free gas resulted from the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s delivery to the service station, on Monday night, of an estimated 6,500 gallons. Employees were required by FEMA to collect the license number and name of each recipient, and the quantity of gas given to them.

    As the South Fork recovers from the Oct. 29 “superstorm,” deliveries of gasoline to the East End remain sporadic and often unannounced, according to employees and owners of many local service stations. Deliveries, when they are made, may consist of half the quantity ordered, leaving both buyers and purveyors in the dark. While demand is sky-high, supply is largely a mystery.

    As of Tuesday afternoon, a number of stations were offering regular unleaded fuel, but not premium blends. Some stations had a small police presence, and those that did not had employees stationed far from the pumps, directing motorists and attempting to keep order. 

    In the days immediately following the storm, however, station owners described chaotic scenes as desperate motorists descended on any supply, often waiting two hours to reach a pump. Brian Raab, of Sam’s Service Station on Three Mile Harbor Road in East Hampton, described last Thursday’s “melee” at his station, which had received a fuel delivery before the storm.

    “We were closed for a day or so. As soon as we got power, we had a line of cars all the way back to One-Stop [on Springs-Fireplace Road]. On Thursday, it started about 10 a.m. We kept pumping until we were out of fuel at 1 o’clock the following morning. That was a promise we made to people — to stay open until we ran out of fuel.”

    On Monday, Mr. Raab said, fuel was delivered at 5 a.m., and the supply ran out in eight hours. He did not know when the next delivery would arrive. “Whenever we get it, we get it.”

    The supply at Schenck Fuels, on Newtown Lane in East Hampton, ran out on Friday afternoon but was replenished the following evening, said Chris Schenck. His station closed at 2 p.m. on Oct. 29, the day of the storm, but reopened the following morning. “We’re in the emergency-service business,” Mr. Schenck said. “We’re here when you need us.” Though deliveries have been sporadic, he said, “There’s plenty of gas on the island. There are so many transports trying to pick up at the terminals. They’ve been waiting, instead of an hour, which is normal, six or seven hours.”

    The rush to fill vehicles — and containers — began last Thursday, Mr. Schenck said, when reports of a gas shortage were broadcast nationally. “I shot from no wait to a two-hour wait, cars lined up all the way past the Middle School, which is insane,” he said, adding that he remained open until 7:30 that night, three and a half hours beyond normal closing time.

    In Montauk, Marshall and Sons never lost electricity, and as of Monday afternoon was the only service station in the hamlet with a supply of gas, according to Peter Rucano. “We have fuel and there’s a line wrapped around the building going to John’s Drive-In, probably 80 cars,” he said in the late afternoon. Motorists were limited to $50 worth of gas per car, Mr. Rucano said, though customers were offering to spend as much as $300.

    The situation was far bleaker at Sag Harbor Getty, said Jim Shelly, the owner. Through Tuesday afternoon, the station was still awaiting a shipment to replenish the supply that had run out on Oct. 27. “We ran out of fuel that day and had a delivery scheduled that night. It didn’t come,” he said. “They told me on Sunday it would come that day, so we put up signs saying ‘No gas until Monday,’ but it didn’t come Sunday. On Monday they said, ‘We’ll definitely be there tonight.’ ” But the storm struck on Monday, “so we still don’t have fuel.”

    Also in Sag Harbor, the Harbor Heights station on Route 114 had gas until Friday at around 1:30 p.m., said Pam Kern. The lines were long and the presence of Sag Harbor police helped, she said. Since then, she has called and waited, but no more gas deliveries have arrived.

    Yesterday morning, employees were concerned about a telephone pole shooting out sparks across from the station. Ms. Kern hoped it would not affect delivery.

    In contrast, drivers waited just 20 minutes to reach one of the many pumps at the Hess station in Wainscott on Saturday afternoon. From the entrance on Georgica Drive, employees directed vehicles into the service station and to a particular pump, while a police officer at the Montauk Highway entrance ensured that no one cut into the line.

    A woman who identified herself as the station’s manager directed a caller to the company’s corporate headquarters, at which the wait time to speak with an official exceeded 45 minutes. A recorded message stated, in part, “We will continue to make every effort to keep our sites supplied and ready to serve communities affected by the storm.”

    The uncertainty surrounding supply and the resulting rush to obtain fuel, on top of the damage and loss of electricity, cable, and Internet service, has frayed nerves on the East End, despite the minor amount of disruption and destruction relative to that on western Long Island and in New York City and New Jersey. Order and civility have been maintained at local service stations, for the most part. Police were at Marshall and Sons on Monday morning, said Mr. Rucano. “It was crazy. It gets out of hand because people try to pull in, but there is a line. We’ve got five guys directing traffic and getting the pumps organized.”

    A police car was outside Sam’s Service Station last Thursday and again on Sunday, said its co-owner, Sebastian Gorgone, who said he had been told of fistfights occurring on the line last Thursday evening. “As a matter of fact, the police called Saturday and said they want us to call them when we get fuel delivered. I have no problem with a police presence,” he said. “I’m not sending my people out with bulletproof vests.”

    The East Hampton Town Board held a hearing last Thursday on a proposed budget for 2013 calling for spending of just over $69 million. If adopted as proposed, it would result in tax rates of $27.86 per $100 of assessed value for properties in the town, a 4.6-percent increase, and a rate of $10.93 per $100 of assessed value for properties in East Hampton and Sag Harbor Villages, a decrease of 1.7 percent.

    A coordinated presentation at the hearing by members of the town’s budget and finance advisory committee included recommendations regarding the scavenger waste plant, long-term capital planning, the Highway Department, a deer management program, and the town’s computer technology status.

    Arthur Malman, the chairman of the committee, congratulated the town’s “whole financial team,” noting that the annual budgets being prepared are “vastly superior” to those in the past.

    Bonnie Krupinski, also a member of the advisory committee, explained the group’s recommendation that the board authorize the purchase of a program that can be used to plan and manage ongoing road repaving efforts. Recommended by Steve Lynch, the Highway Superintendent, the system would help the department to assess the current state of the roadways and develop a long-range capital plan for bringing the town’s 300 miles of public roads back into good repair.

    That could cost $25 to $30 million over the next few years, Ms. Krupinski said, as roads have been neglected. Recent budgets have included funds to repave only four to five miles a year, she said; the target this year is 20 to 30 miles. However, she noted, Mr. Lynch believes that the sum for repaving included in next year’s proposed budget will cover repairs to only about 12 miles.

    To implement a deer management program that is being developed by the town board, the budget committee suggested adding $100,000 to $150,000 to the 2013 spending plan.

    That would enable the town to cover the approximately $30,000 cost of doing a population count on the existing herd, pay $20,000 to coordinate an effort to identify and enlist landowners in a culling program, and leave $50,000 to $100,000 to initiate the culling, using trained sharpshooters.

    On the scavenger waste plant, Mr. Malman reiterated the committee’s belief, previously asserted to the board, that environmental testing to determine what, if any, contamination exists at the plant is crucial and will provide the “background the board needs to make a decision” about the future of the facility. In addition, money will be needed to pay for preparation of a comprehensive townwide wastewater management plan, which the board majority has approved. Proposals have already been received from several consultants.

     An additional $250,000 should be added to the budget for those things, Mr. Malman said. In addition, he said, Mr. Wilkinson’s proposed budget includes only enough money to keep the waste transfer station now being operated at the plant open for three months. “It’s unlikely,” Mr. Malman said, that the testing and planning procedures would be finalized in that time. The committee suggested that the transfer station be closed immediately, and remain closed until final decisions have been made, for savings of $25,000 to $30,000 a month that could offset the costs of the comprehensive plan and testing.

    A description by Michael Diesenhaus of the budget committee, outlining a computer system that could put town records and applications online, drew a strong reaction from Councilwoman Theresa Quigley, who expressed doubt that it could be implemented in East Hampton.

    Improved information technologies, Mr. Diesenhaus told the board, “are the best methods to achieve the goal of your administration, which has been to reduce the cost of government. I.T. is one of the best methods and tools” to increase efficiency, he said, “and furthermore can be a source of revenue.”

    An “E-Gov” module, to which the town could sell subscriptions to real estate brokers, lawyers, and others who must consistently access town records, could pay for itself within a few years, he said, and then raise revenue. Such a capability would also “enfranchise” second-home owners who cannot easily visit Town Hall, he said. Beach permits and the like could be offered online, reducing staffing requirements.

    “It’s a lovely concept, but there’s too many hurdles,” Ms. Quigley said. “Because the best intentions, the best work . . . it falls apart. Because there’s something much more wrong with government than the fixes can deal with.”

    As an example, she cited the board’s approval of a new phone system installation at town offices a year and a half ago. “And it hasn’t happened,” she said.

    Peter Wadsworth, the final speaker from the budget and finance committee, lauded the board’s work in clearing up the financial disarray left by a previous administration. “It makes it possible to have a forward-thinking conversation,” he said, suggesting that the town “develop a robust, multi-year capital plan to rebuild and modernize its infrastructure,” and to protect environmental resources.

    Also at the budget hearing, representatives of several organizations appealed to the board to continue or restore funding to their programs. They included Tim Bryden of Project MOST, Ruth Appelhof of Guild Hall, and Robert Strada of LTV.

    Zachary Cohen, the head of the town’s nature preserve committee and a member of the East Hampton Trails Preservation Society, proposed that the board increase by $35,000 the amount of money from the community preservation fund earmarked for land stewardship. The fund is separate from general tax levies, and the change would have no impact on tax rates.

    Ira Bezoza endorsed that idea. The town has only one person working as a land steward for its thousands of acres of preserved land, he pointed out. “The C.P.F. has enough money to support more than one land steward,” Mr. Bezoza said.

    Post-storm damage assessment, restoration, and cleanup have begun, with varied results among the towns, villages, and hamlets of the East End.

    In East Hampton, several damage-assessment teams were dispatched throughout the town to take photos of storm-affected beaches, buildings, and roadways, but complete information had not been compiled as of yesterday, officials said. East Hampton Town opened a warming center at the American Legion Hall in Amagansett Saturday night, for one night only. Bruce Bates, the town’s emergency preparedness coordinator, said calls from people still lacking electricity and seeking warm shelter were few, and that people had been advised to bunk with family or friends.

    After Hurricane Sandy essentially shut the region down on Oct. 29 and 30, subsequent power outages, road closures, and other hazards kept many schools closed for days, but all East End schools have now resumed classes.

    In Southampton Town, the response was consistent, as was communication via the Internet and social media outlets such as Facebook and Twitter. Regular updates were posted throughout the week as to cleanups, clinics, and shelters that offered overnight lodging, restrooms, and charging stations for electronic devices.

    Jennifer Garvey, spokeswoman for Southampton Town Supervisor Anna Throne-Holst, said yesterday that assessment of damaged areas took place immediately to determine if residences were structurally sound and inhabitable. The hardest hit areas included Flanders, specifically the Bay View Pines neighborhood, where six houses were completely destroyed, North Sea, Hampton Bays, and East Quogue.

    The coast was badly hit, Ms. Garvey said, with Bridgehampton and Sagaponack losing most if not all of their dunes. A number of houses there experienced structural damage. The Water Mill Beach Club was destroyed, she said, and all public beaches severely eroded.

    The Southampton Town Trustees and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation agreed to immediate sand placement, which required that trucks gain access to the beach. The storm filled the Mecox cut with sand, she said, and it needed to be dug out to alleviate rising waters near houses in the Mecox Bay area. Ms. Garvey said she was grateful to Steve Mezynieski, an excavator who cleared roads, at no charge to the town, so sand could be placed.

    On Saturday the trustees held a meeting with oceanfront homeowners who had questions about how to shore up their houses, Ms. Garvey said. There are still many power outages, and complaints from residents who say there are many more than is shown on LIPA’s Web site, which as of yesterday listed about 1,500 outages in Southampton Town.

    Hampton Bays High School was opened as a warming shelter briefly, and then the Hampton Bays Middle School opened over the weekend when the temperature dropped. The Flanders Community Center is still open as a shelter.

    “Seniors with power outages and no heat was a huge concern,” Ms. Garvey said. “It is difficult to get them to leave their homes.” She asked that residents “look out for their neighbors.” A program is available for senior citizens in Hampton Bays, and anyone on the list is looked after. Residents who need help with transportation can add themselves to the list by calling 728-1235, she said. There is also a special needs center for the elderly or those requiring medical assistance.

    Ms. Garvey said that residents should be aware that “any saltwater intrusion needs electrical inspection, even if it looks like it hasn’t reached the outlets.” Circuit boxes may have been affected, she said. She encouraged residents with damage to take pictures and save debris such as wrecked furniture for inspection by insurance companies. She said the supervisor’s office can be called with questions, and that a public meeting with a Federal Emergency Management Agency representative will be planned to explain flood policies.

    In Sag Harbor, Mayor Brian Gilbride said on Tuesday that the village was kept busy during the days after the hurricane with “a lot of flooding,” which was extensive in the parking lot behind the village along Long Island Avenue. The village set up generators, assisted by Sag Harbor Fire Department volunteers, to pump eight million gallons for two or three days until it was removed.

    Over all, the mayor said the village was “very lucky” compared to the “devastation to the west.” He said that “the guys got out immediately to cut brush and trees” in order to help LIPA get where it needed to go. He said he was pretty sure that every road was now open, although there are still “sporadic outages in the village.”

    The flooding was especially bad in the Redwood area, as well as Bay Point, Noyac, and parts of North Haven, according to Sag Harbor Village Police Chief Tom Fabiano. He said the school had power restored after two days, but many residents were not so lucky.

    For Sagaponack Village as a whole, Mayor Donald Louchheim said, “Sandy’s impact appears to have been less than Irene’s — fewer street trees down, fewer homes without power.” For the beachfront areas, he said, “Sandy was devastating, particularly between Peter’s Pond Lane and Town Line Road, which was flattened.” The dune was entirely washed away there, he said, with a half-dozen houses seriously undermined. West of Peter’s Pond, there was serious erosion along the dunes, and in several areas the sea washed over the remaining portion of the dunes. Houses on the edge of Sagaponack Pond were flooded.

    Mr. Louchheim said that about 200 homes, out of a total of more than 650, were left without power, all in the portion of the village south of Parsonage Lane. By Tuesday morning, there appeared to be only 37 homes still without electricity, he said, on Gibson and Crestview Lanes and on the southern part of Sagg Main Street. Southampton Town highway crews had all of the main roads cleared of debris by the morning after the storm, Mr. Louchheim said.

    Elsewhere, the Animal Rescue Fund of the Hamptons was prepared for the storm, and served as an emergency pet evacuation center for the Town and Village of East Hampton for two days last week. ARF boarded six animals in all, free of charge, for people fleeing their homes. In the event of future outages, the center welcomes animals at the adoption center in Wainscott during regular business hours. Animals should be taken there with food, an identification collar, a leash, and any necessary medications.

    At 9 a.m. on Oct. 30, the morning after Hurricane Sandy knocked thousands of East End residents off the grid, Dennis Fabiszak, the director of the East Hampton Library, arrived at work to find dozens of people clustered outside, checking e-mail and talking urgently on their cellphones.

    “We had 171 people using Wi-Fi that day, even though they couldn’t get in the building,” which was closed, Mr. Fabiszak said, because staff were unable to get there. “We set up chairs in back and ran surge strips outside to make it easier. We had 30 strips, all around the library.”

    In stricken communities all over the metropolitan area, libraries became a refuge last week for people seeking warmth, information, and connection. On the South Fork, alone among the four libraries east of Bridgehampton, East Hampton never lost power, Internet, or wireless service, and word got around fast.

    Kathryn Reid of East Hampton, whose Internet was out until Monday, heard on Oct. 31, two days afte the storm, that the library had Wi-Fi. “I went over, and it was completely packed,” she said. “I went back on Friday and again yesterday [Monday] for three or four hours. That’s how I got through it.”

    “Once we saw the need, we opened early on Wednesday and Thursday, at 7 a.m., and stayed open till around 7 p.m.,” Mr. Fabiszak said. “On Wednesday, we had 1,400 people come in to the library.” Four hundred thirty-nine of them brought their own laptops and used Wi-Fi, he said, while hundreds of others went on the library’s computers, signing up in advance for precious time.

    Melissa Jaffe, who works at the library, said some people were a bit on edge that day as they waited to contact family members who’d been unable to reach them, “but the majority were understanding.” All 11 of the library’s adult computers were in constant use, she said, with a long waiting list and a time limit for use of 60 minutes. There were extra power strips in rooms normally used for meetings for those needing to charge their devices.

    “We realized what an important role we played,” the library director said. “We got people coffee from Starbucks. We have running water so we filled water bottles.”

    As power slowly returned, the sea of humanity receded a little.  “On Thursday, the day after Halloween, we had about 1,000,” Mr. Fabiszak said. “Those numbers are staggering for our building and our community. Everyone who came was coming to stay for a while. The staff was great, but the public was also wonderful. A lot of people brought in their extra Halloween candy. The sense of community kept snowballing.”

    Clare Scott of East Hampton was at the library on and off during the hurricane week and again on Monday. “It was a great help,” she said. “I really appreciate its being so well staffed and accommodating.”

    Cynthia Young, director of the Amagansett Library, found it dark on Oct. 31 and posted signs on the front and side doors of the building telling people that East Hampton had power and was the place to go for wireless. The next day, she said, “The power was on when we came in, but I didn’t turn on the computers. I was afraid of power surges.” With schools out, the library showed children’s movies a lot of the time, but there were “far fewer visitors than usual.”

    Amagansett did not get Internet or telephone service back until Monday. “That’s what people were most anxious about,” Ms. Young said.

    In Springs, Heather Anderson said, the library was open on Halloween but had no power. By Friday there was power but still no Wi-Fi or Internet. A few supplicants came by that day needing to connect for business or medical reasons and afraid to go to East Hampton because they were running low on gas.

    “I let them sit in my office and use my own computer,” Ms. Anderson said. “What are you going to do?” The small Springs Library was open on Monday, all systems go.

    Out at the Montauk Library, where power failed when Sandy hit but was restored on Halloween, it was pretty much the same story: heat and electricity, with people coming in to get warm and charge their cellphones, but no Wi-Fi or Internet until later in the week. Very few Montaukers, by all accounts, were among the crowds at the East Hampton Library, however. “Crossing Napeague was not an option for a lot of people,” Karen Rade, the library’s director, said.

    For those experts who have spent time studying and thinking about eastern Long Island’s resilience to storms like Hurricane Sandy, the consensus is that the time to stand and resist nature’s fury has passed.

    In interviews this week, Scott A. Mandia, a professor of physical sciences at Suffolk County Community College; Robert DeLuca, the director of the Group for the East End; Rameshwar Das, who helped write East Hampton Town’s Local Waterfront Revitalization Program plan, and Carl Safina, the director of the Blue Ocean Institute and a Lazy Point resident, offered slightly differing takes on what the lessons should be for policymakers, but all said that climate change and rising sea levels meant that storms like the one that struck the Northeast on Oct. 29 are becoming more frequent.

    Hurricane Sandy’s impact on the eastern Long Island shoreline, although it was certainly less severe than elsewhere, was still remarkable for two reasons: because its eye made landfall far to the south, on the Jersey Shore, and because it was only a Category 1 storm. National Weather Service records for Oct. 29 showed top gusts of 66 miles per hour in Montauk and about 70 miles per hour in Amagansett — a couple of miles per hour below hurricane strength.

    During Sandy, a tide station maintained by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration at Fort Pond Bay, Montauk, recorded a surge of about five feet above normal.

    The Hurricane of 1938, which crossed near Patchogue, had sustained winds that neared 130 miles per hour. Storm surges recorded were about 12 feet at Westhampton Beach and nearly 15 feet at Montauk.

    Hurricane Sandy was bad, leaving some 40,000 people without a place to sleep in New York City alone, but it spared eastern Long Island what could have been a far-worse blow. “This, believe it or not, was kind of a miss,” Mr. Mandia said. “We are going to get a Katrina-like storm at some point in the future.”

    For Mr. Mandia, the bottom line was, “elevate or retreat, don’t spend money on barriers.”

    The most important message, as far as he was concerned, is that sea levels are going to rise and they are going to rise faster. This means that even a relatively weak storm, like another Sandy, could be increasingly difficult for the region to absorb.

    If an elevate-and-retreat policy is not adopted at large across the region, Mr. Mandia said, sea walls or revetments and tidal gates would have to be continually extended higher. He compared rising seas to a basketball court: “The rim stays at 10 feet, but as the floor gets higher, eventually even ordinary players are going to be able to dunk.”

    Sandy, he said, rode into the metropolitan region on an existing sea-level rise of about a foot, making its impact worse than it would have been a century ago. Predictions for additional rise in the future are for another foot by the middle of the century and as much as three feet by 2100.

    “The take-home point is we have to do something. We can’t do nothing,” Mr. Mandia said. The debate over science is over now, he said, and lawmakers must now think about policy. Mr. Mandia is the author, with Hunt Janin, of "Rising Sea Levels: An Introduction to Cause and Impact," published last month.

    Mark Tercek, the president of the Nature Conservancy, wrote in an opinion piece that appeared in the Christian Science Monitor on Monday that communities must now take four basic steps: reduce carbon pollution, restore ecological storm buffers, seek ways to balance natural systems and man-made structures, and be more careful about how and where building is allowed.

    Locally, Nate Woiwode, a coastal-policy expert for the conservancy’s Long Island chapter, said that the story of Sandy was really that of 2011’s Hurricane Irene in the context of a changing climate. “Storms bring home that issue,” he said. “This is a new world. How do we invest in our natural resources in a way that we can ensure that human and natural resources are safer and more successful?”

    Mr. Woiwode, who was attending a conference in Rhode Island this week about climate change and the coasts, said that for every dollar of risk reduction, coastal communities would save about $5 later.

    As Mr. Woiwode and the others see it, the coast can be shored up by thoughtfully balancing manmade structures and natural systems, while acknowledging that Mother Nature is going to get the last word.

    Mr. Woiwode said the key to saving communities from storm devastation was to adapt coastal infrastructure so it is not as vulnerable. This could involve restoring wetlands that serve as natural surge buffers, and rebuilding dunes along the ocean. “There has to be an absolutely fundamental change in the way we look at this,” he said.

    The Town of East Hampton already has a master document, created under the Local Waterfront Revitalization Program and completed in 1999, that is supposed to guide projects along the shore. Its authors at the time acknowledged that the town was vulnerable to northeasters and hurricanes and wrote that “contemporary development has often failed to take into account coastal storms and the potential for damage from flooding and erosion.”

    The report, which was not adopted by the Town of East Hampton and New York State until 2007, said that a “strategic retreat” in the face of receding shorelines is the most realistic approach.

    Mr. Das, who was on a citizens committee that helped draft the town’s waterfront plan and then edited the final report, said that the moment had come for elected officials to look at the coast with clarity and foresight. “There has been a head-in-the-sand approach to it. Fortunately that is kind of changing from the top,” he said, citing statements from New York Governor Andrew M. Cuomo, who said after Sandy that the way people and governments think about the coast had to shift.

    “The town board needs to re-engage in the long-term planning process,” Mr. Das said.

    At the local level the policy future might involve an overarching post-storm recovery strategy, Mr. DeLuca said. This might, he said, firmly outlaw rebuilding in certain areas — something already attempted in various town codes, but routinely overlooked as emergency permits are handed out. “Most elected officials say to property owners, ‘We will not stand in your way,’ ” he said.

    This “permit-by-permit” response, he believes, leaves the coast open to devastation with each new storm. A more-sharply defined plan would cost taxpayers less in infrastructure repairs and post-storm handouts to property owners.

    Universal restrictions that applied to everyone along an at-risk section of shoreline would have to be backed up by some kind of financial commitment from the state or Washington, D.C., and perhaps a public referendum, Mr. DeLuca said. A broad and rock-solid approach, he said, “would create some level of certainty, and over time, that looks more attractive” to real estate investors and insurers alike.

    Without it, he said, “at some point there will be an apocalypse of cost where even Lloyd’s of London says, ‘You know, we can’t do this.’ ”

    As New York and New Jersey stagger under the blow and pick up the pieces, he said, “This is an opportunity to have a discussion.”

    Mr. Safina expressed his opposition to the Federal Flood Insurance program, which he called “a counterproductive way for the rest of the country to subsidize people putting billions of dollars and millions of lives at continuous risk, encouraging wholly inappropriate development.” The program is an insurer of last resort, allowing property owners up to $350,000 in combined structural and possession coverage, and is generally required by banks issuing mortgages along the U.S. coasts.

     Mr. Safina said, “To help people rebuild in those places is to help put lives and investment at repeated risk. It’s foolish.”

    “Most people on the East End have no idea of the extent of devastation that has occurred just west of here,” said Brendan Byrne of Shinnecock Hills on his drive home from Long Beach Tuesday evening.

    People are struggling to stay warm, and to survive, he said. Mr. Byrne, who took a few dozen workers to Long Beach to help clean and gut houses, is one of many on the South Fork who have headed west to help disaster-stricken communities reeling from Sandy’s wrath. He owns All Hampton Services, a general property services company, and is paying the workers who go with him.

    In those communities, where many houses are uninhabitable, vehicles are destroyed, and belongings are piled with debris in the streets, thousands are suddenly homeless, hungry, distraught, and scared, and many are contending with thieves looking to take what little is left, by land and by sea.

    “They can’t get a piece of pizza,” Mr. Byrne said, explaining that there is little food to be had from Long Beach west.

    The numbers of displaced families who have lost everything to storm surge are huge in places like Babylon and Lindenhurst and only increase heading west, where fewer schools are open as safe havens and communication is spotty due to lack of power and poor cellphone service. The gas shortage makes it difficult if not impossible to run generators.

    As temperatures drop, the situation worsens.

    Grim situations bring out the worst in some, but the best in others.

    When Ed Downes, president of the Sag Harbor Ambulance Corps, heard that an entire fleet of emergency vehicles had been lost in the Rockaways, he asked his department if it would donate a 2002 modular ambulance that was recently replaced. On Saturday, it will be driven to the Broad Channel Volunteer Fire Department.

    “Why send it empty?” Sag Harbor Village Police Chief Tom Fabiano asked Tuesday morning. An hour and a half later he was on WLNG asking for donations, and an hour after that, bags of supplies began to arrive at the Division Street precinct.

    Many other South Fork residents and businesses have organized relief efforts. On Tuesday, a Hampton Jitney transported volunteers, along with cleanup supplies like gloves, bleach, brushes, and garbage bags, from East Hampton Town Hall to East Rockaway and Long Beach. A separate refrigerated truck followed with food. Caroline Wilkinson-Midson, a volunteer with East End Cares, said the food was gone in 10 minutes.

    “Another trip is needed,” she wrote online shortly after her arrival, adding that diapers, milk, and flashlights are a priority. She called what she witnessed “total devastation,” noting there was “not a FEMA truck in sight.”

    Those interested in helping, said Wendy Tarlow of Sag Harbor, another volunteer for the organization, can “like” the Facebook “Sandy LB Help page.” Clothing has been put on a temporary hold in some cases, the volunteers said, due to the time and energy required to separate out “Speedos and capris.” They are looking for additional storage space to enable the acceptance of all items that donors offer.

    What is needed most immediately, they said, are easy-to-open and eat non-perishable foods, water, camp lanterns, flashlights, batteries, candles, baby wipes, formula, diapers, paper goods, plastic utensils, can openers, toiletries, towels, and medical supplies.

    Clothes for all ages are needed and best separated by gender and size. Among the requests: new undergarments, new and warm socks, shoes, hats, and gloves. School supplies, toys, and games are being taken for children who have lost everything. And warm blankets are being sought for people and pets, too, who also need food and supplies.

    Cleanup and construction items are also in demand, including bleach, work gloves, dust masks, tarps, heavy-duty garbage bags, rope, head lamps, nails, tools, plastic trash bins, fuel containers, push brooms, mops, shovels, rakes, and wheelbarrows.

    The Montauk Community Church is collecting donations in its basement to be transported west from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily. East Hampton Town Hall is also collecting donations, as are many local firehouses. In Southampton, the Hampton Jitney office in Southampton is a drop-off site.

    Dancehampton, a children’s dance studio on Lumber Lane in East Hampton, started collecting donations of children’s jackets, hats, gloves, and other warm clothing on Monday and was to continue to do so through tonight. Clothing, which will be sent to East Rockaway and Long Beach, can be dropped off between 3:30 and 7:30 p.m.

    The Goat on a Boat Puppet Theatre in Sag Harbor has joined with Holy Trinity/St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church of Staten Island to help that community. With immediate collection preferred, the theater on East Union Street will continue the effort through Thanksgiving.

    The Southampton Chamber of Commerce is collecting gently used cold weather clothing for adults and children and shoes of all sizes through Monday. In combination, Bay Street Theatre in Sag Harbor will serve as a dropoff site for food and water donations in its lobby from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily this week and as needed going forward.

    All three Bridgehampton National Bank branches in Southampton will collect items for Staten Island residents, to be delivered by Gardens by Romi of Southampton, every weekend through Thanksgiving.

    The Hampton Bays Mothers’ Association has begun a gift card drive, to be distributed through churches in the worst affected neighborhoods. Gift cards to Target and Home Depot-type stores have been suggested, as have Visa or Mastercard gift cards. Drop off locations include C’s Home and Office Management on Noyack Road in Sag Harbor, the Sag Harbor Garden Center, Agave Bar and Mexican Grill in Bridgehampton, Southampton Stationery on Hampton Road in Southampton Village, Stevenson’s Toys in Southampton, and the Southampton Publick House.

    Time For Teens is also collecting gift cards, which can be sent to Time For Teens at P.O. Box 552 Southampton 11969. Monetary donations are also accepted. The gift cards will also benefit local families in need.

    Suffolk County National Bank is collecting monetary donations of up to $25,000 to be matched, through Nov. 23, when the bank will add its own donation to a check that will be given to the American Red Cross. Donations may be taken to any of the bank’s 30 locations, with checks payable to S.C.N.B. Hurricane Sandy Relief Account, care of the bank, P.O. Box 9000, Riverhead 11901.

    Island Harvest is taking monetary contributions online at islandharvest.org, and is also seeking food and volunteers. A list of current needs can be found on the Web site.

    An online registry has been created on Amazon.com by alumni of Occupy Wall Street, whose Occupy Sandy Relief activists mobilized thousands to become one of the more active volunteer efforts in New York City. Supplies can be ordered and shipped directly to those in need, and contributions are also being taken at Occupy Sandy c/o The Church of St. Luke and St. Matthew, 520 Clinton Avenue, Brooklyn 11238.

    On Saturday night at LTV Studios in Wainscott, local bands and special guests will perform at a Hurricane Sandy Relief concert for the hardest hit areas. The concert will run from 7 to 9 p.m., with details to be announced via a Facebook page, facebook.com/LtvSandyBenefit. Tickets will cost $20 at the door.

    In coordination with East Hampton Town Animal Control, the Animal Rescue Fund of the Hamptons has donated travel kennels, cat carriers, pet food, litter, and blankets to the Rockaways and is accepting donations of pet food at its adoption center on Daniel’s Hole Road in Wainscott.

    Ms. Tarlow, of East End Cares, said “We’ve been getting an amazing amount of pet rescue requests through other groups. . . . There are a huge amount of abandoned pets.”

A large self-reliant village has been set up at the East Hampton Airport on Industrial Road, Wainscott, as a temporary home with capacity for as many as 1,000 workers from around the country who began to arrive on Thursday. Many of the personnel, who have been brought on to get electricity restored to eastern Long Island, will sleep "ship style," three-high in large trailers.

The 36-per-trailer bunks have curtains, lockers, electrical outlets, and reading lamps. While the workers get some rest, their trucks are serviced and refueled on-site. Debris is removed, and are supplies reloaded. Trailers with hot showers, and cooking and laundry facilities are also provided.

Tents with long tables of hot food are set up by a contracted party rental company with workers from around the country. On Thursday, Tari Wilson, who is from Ohio, was setting up catering trays to be filled with beef stew. "We greet them and send them off with a smile, she said."

A spokeswoman for the LIPA media relations office said Saturday that 900 workers would be housed at the airport and that they would be deployed across Suffolk County.

Hurricane Sandy was "twice as bad as Irene," said Vinny Esposito, the staging-area's project manager, overseeing the work by Lexington, Kentucky-based Emergency Disaster Services on Thursday. For the Long Island Power Authority the 950,000 customers initially without power represented 90 percent of the utility's accounts, he said. As of 10 a.m. Saturday, the power authority's Web site was reporting 463,000 still cut off from electricity.

As of Saturday morning, LIPA was listing 2,200 without power in the Town of East Hampton, 7,700 in the Town of Southampton, and 222 on Shelter Island.

"There is rarely transmission damage," Mr. Esposito said, but from this storm, he said, there were "quite a few" major lines interrupted. The first day or two, he said, electricians had to restore power to the substations. Then, repairs could begin on the distribution system that carries it to the residences and businesses.

Mr. Esposito said electricians and tree-cutters are working "around the clock in 16-hour shifts" in what he called a restoration role. LIPA tries to hire local contractors, he said, but there simply are not enough in the region, so they have had to call on crews from across the United States.

On Shelter Island, workers' sleeping accommodations are at bed-and-breakfasts. They get lunch and dinner, such as burgers and spaghetti and meatballs at the central firehouse, as per the town's emergency plan, said Shelter Island Fire Department Chief John D'Amato. They also feed first responders and their families as part of the plan.

While managing the traffic flow of arriving tractor-trailers on Thursday, Ron Vulpis, a LIPA fleet manager, said that the level of East End damage is mild compared to the "extensive damage to poles, transformers, and wires" further up the Island.

Bunks were readied for workers at the East Hampton Airport.

Morgan McGivern