East Hampton Town Councilwoman Theresa Quigley burst into tears Monday night while defending the East Hampton Town Board against accusations that it had ignored code violations in the hamlet, during a meeting of the Montauk Citizens Advisory Committee at the Montauk School.

    “I think you guys are really unfair, and I’m not running for office so I don’t give a crap,” she said, before walking out of the room.

    The tone was set at the beginning of the evening, when Ms. Quigley repeatedly referred to the Surf Lodge as “the Surfside” until members corrected her. She was at the meeting to discuss possible changes to the town’s lighting laws, but the conversation quickly turned to problems at the Surf Lodge and Ruschmeyer’s restaurant.

    The businesses have been blamed by the committee for the erosion of Montauk’s quality of life.

    Surf Lodge is owned and operated by Edgemere Montauk L.L.C., and Ruschmeyer’s is operated by King and Grove, which leased the property earlier this year. Jayma Cardoso of Manhattan and Montauk was identified in an Aug. 19 New York Times story as the owner of the Surf Lodge.

    Richard Kahn, a member of the committee, accused the town board of being a do-nothing board for allowing the establishments to continue to operate after receiving numerous citations, ranging from overcrowded conditions to zoning violations.

    “When we had a real town board that took action, Tony Bullock moved in,” said Mr. Kahn. Mr. Bullock, who was East Hampton Town Supervisor in the ’90s, managed to get a nightclub closed after it was repeatedly cited for violating the town code, he said. “There are flagrant violations here and the town is doing nothing,” said Mr. Kahn.

    Ms. Quigley produced a calendar that listed 100 violation notices for the Surf Lodge from early July to Aug. 10 of this year. “We can’t do anything except bring them to court, and then it’s up to the judge,” she said. “What happens after that is out of our control.”

    Robert McKinley, a manager of both establishments, commented on the issue yesterday by e-mail. “The only reason an establishment should or could get shut down in a case like this is if there are life safety issues and violations, of which there are none on either property,” he wrote.

    He said the businesses continue to cooperate with the police, fire department and fire marshal’s offices. Surf Lodge, he said, had received violations for a rolling bar and for a removable awning and the use of a food truck, both of which, he said, are either required or permitted by the Suffolk County Health Department.  The food truck, he said, is only open when the kitchen is closed to provide meals for hotel guests and late-night patrons.

    Ruschmeyer’s, he claimed, “has only one violation,” for outdoor bleachers set up around a sand pit. Mr. McKinley said the bleachers were “verbally approved” by the town but that the approval was revoked after residents complained.

     “We are victims of selective enforcement . . . because we are busy, and successful,” he wrote. “I was always under the impression that a business is supposed to be successful, and when it’s generating revenue and creating jobs within the community it’s a good thing.”

    He ended by saying that both businesses “are big contributors”to local charities and held an annual staff beach cleanup, with over 50 participants, at the end of August. “Yet we continue to get bad press and threats to shut us down. It’s simply not fair,” he said.

    Committee members on Monday called for an injunction to close the nightspots down. Ms. Quigley said she had spoken to the town attorney’s office and was told that an injunction could not be sought. “They said forget about it, it will never happen,” she said.

    When she was interrupted several times, Ms. Quigley said she wouldn’t mind leaving the meeting. “I’m happy to leave when I hear that we’re a do-nothing board; we’re very busy,” she said, adding, “I would proffer that we are not doing nothing. I would proffer that we are doing something.”

    Lisa Grenci, the committee’s chairwoman, told the councilwoman that people were reacting in frustration. “What you’re seeing here is the catalyst,” she said, noting that the Surf Lodge had been operating despite violations for three years. If the town board didn’t move for an injunction, she said, maybe the committee would take it into their own hands.

    “Are you proposing vigilantism?” asked Ms. Quigley.

    “No, but we might hire our own attorney,” said Ms. Grenci.

    Members were incredulous that the Surf Lodge had received 60 violations last summer and paid the fines without correcting the issues. John Chimples, a committee member, asked Ms. Quigley about the results of those 60 violations and Ms. Quigley said she didn’t have any information about it.

    “Why not?” he asked. “This is a huge issue for Montauk. If you were living next door to one of these places something would be done.”

    Some mentioned raising the fines and citing the businesses daily until the violations were remedied. Another member suggested that the committee contact the State Liquor Authority to see if the establishments’ liquor licenses could be pulled. Others said the town attorney should not be allowed to plea-bargain with the defendants.

    At that point Jay Fruin, a committee member, turned to Ms. Quigley, who was sitting next to him, and pleaded with her in a soft voice. “Theresa, Surf Lodge is dangerous. Montauk has turned into a circus. Our quality of life has drastically been downgraded. Let’s get on the same page and see what we can do,” he said.

    Ms. Quigley told the committee that she gets it. “I get what’s happening to the community,” she said, raising her voice and choking back tears. She noted that she’s 57 years old and has lived here and raised her children here. “I could easily jump on your emotional bandwagon. You say I don’t care? I’m up until midnight or sometimes 2 o’clock in the morning thinking about all this. I’m trying my damnedest, guys. The ‘do-nothing board’ is insulting to me. But I’m passionate about doing it the right way. It’s horrible to sit here and take all this crap. I’m not willing to sit here,” she said, leaving the lighting plans on a table and walking out.

    Julia Prince, the committee’s town board liaison, explained that an injunction can be obtained only if there are health and safety issues. Most of the violations for the Surf Lodge concern zoning issues, which she could not discuss further as they are currently before a court, she said.

    Potentially one of the busiest summer weekends was boarded up and shut down by the winds and flooding Irene brought to the East End on Sunday.    

    However, not every business suffered. Even those that closed as a precaution or because they lost power were able to say the summer has been a good one. 

    The manager of Waldbaum’s in East Hampton, Stu Pettit, said that the grocery store only lost power for a few hours, and, in general, “It was not as bad as everything had seemed” from the weather reports.

    “Monday was kind of slow,” he added, saying that business was picking up on Tuesday.

    Of course, the week before, business was booming as customers grabbed what they could before Irene came ashore. “It was a tremendous week,” business-wise, said Mr. Pettit, but added that it might have been just as busy, taking into account the time of year, if there had been no hurricane warning at all.

    He is, he said, expecting a slower-than-usual Labor Day weekend. “I think a lot of people went home to wait out the storm and they’re not planning on coming back this summer,” he said.

    Schiavoni’s Market on Main Street in Sag Harbor was dealt a freezing blow:  Without a generator, the grocery store lost upward of $20,000 in perishable goods over the weekend.

    Christine Zaykowski, the manager, said it was a “big downer,” but that insurance would most likely pay the company back for its commercial losses.

    Guild Hall, the arts center in East Hampton, was forced to cancel several high-profile events, including its star-studded 80th anniversary celebration on Saturday.

    “We were fortunate to be able to hold the Garden as Art tour on Friday and Saturday,” Ruth Appelhof, executive director of Guild Hall, said. “But, sadly, we had to cancel that evening’s sold-out performance celebrating our 80th birthday, along with Sunday’s events.”

    “While this is disappointing and hurts our box office, we are fortunate not to have sustained any building damage,” Ms. Appelhof said. There was good news as the season waned, however. “We have enjoyed a phenomenal summer,” she said.

    Pepperoni’s Pizza on Springs-Fireplace Road in East Hampton was doing a bang-up business as early as Sunday night as the storm moved north, with lines out the door, thanks to a working generator and a full staff.

    One Wainscott vendor, who preferred to remain anonymous, was actually over-prepared. He bought enough ice — 1,600 pounds — to save his perishables and had a 45-foot refrigerated truck on though he did lose many customers over what would normally have been one of his busiest weekends.

    “Sucks all around,” he said, echoing the thoughts of many Long Islanders.

    Theo Foscolo, a manager at Rowdy Hall, the East Hampton bistro, had a different take. “We had to close early Saturday, and we had no power on Sunday. But Monday was incredibly busy, since we were one of the few restaurants to have our power on. We did really well.”

    “We did lose a day, but I think we made up for it with the rush on Monday,” he said.

    By Saturday afternoon, South Emerson Avenue, the road nearest the ocean where large motels such as the Royal Atlantic and Ocean Beach  are located, was like a ghost town. The usual crowd of pedestrians and vehicles was gone. Most motel room windows along the stretch were boarded up against the heavy winds that Hurricane Irene was expected to bring. It was obvious that even though evacuation wasn’t mandatory, many guests had chosen to leave.

    Laraine Creegan, the executive director of the Montauk Chamber of Commerce, reported the hamlet fared well during the storm. She noted that many people who vacation in Montauk but live UpIsland left to return to their homes. “They were hit worse than we were,” she said, adding that the chamber is still assessing the financial damage to its members. “Obviously, we lost the whole weekend,” she said.

    Montauk’s I.G.A. and 7-Eleven were open, however, for the duration. The I.G.A. opened at 7 a.m. Sunday and closed at 8:30 p.m., a little earlier than usual.

    People continued to call the chamber all week to see how Montauk made out and to check on motel room availability, Ms. Creegan said, adding that rooms are available. By Tuesday, she was able to say, “The town is really back in full swing.”

    Gurney’s, Montauk’s largest oceanfront resort, relied on generator power to stay open throughout the storm. Guests were not asked to evacuate, although many chose to do so. Those who stayed on were equipped with Glow Sticks when the power went off at 5 a.m. Sunday. It was restored by Monday.

    The restaurant at Gurney’s remained open throughout the storm, serving breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It was noted that some Montauk residents who had lost power went there for meals. The gym and spa were closed on Saturday and Sunday for safety, given their expanses of glass.

    According to Diane Hausman, an owner of the Sands Motel on South Emery Street, Montauk seemed a bit quiet before news of the storm, although she noted that the week before Labor Day is historically quiet as families head home to prepare for vacation’s end and the start of school before coming back to celebrate Labor Day, traditionally the last big weekend of summer.

    Of the 42 units in the two-story motel, only two rooms were occupied during the storm, she said. For those who chose to leave, the motel offered to reschedule their stays. Ms. Hausman said the motel is fully booked for the holiday weekend.

    Ken Walles, the owner of the Oceanside Resort Inn, which has 30 units, said it was about half full during the storm. Here, too, those who left were given future credit. “We don’t want to lose them as customers. This way they’ll be back in the fall,” the resort owner said. “It’s been a great season,” he said. He added that his motel is fully booked not only for the holiday but right through October.

    Mr. Walles expressed the consensus in the hamlet about Irene. “It could have been a lot worse, but we were lucky,” he said.

    Tropical Storm Irene was the final straw for at least one oceanfront property owner whose house is just west of Georgica Beach. The effort to protect the property in the future promises to be controversial.

    In Montauk on Tuesday, the Keith Grimes Construction company was hired by the owners of the Royal Atlantic motel to recreate a protective dune that was virtually melted by Irene’s storm surge on Sunday. 

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    Other sand was trucked to the beach in front of Montauk’s motel row by  Pat Bistrian Materials to rebuild dunes in front of a few of other oceanfront motels. Although the beach was pummeled there, the destruction was nothing like the damage caused by Tropical Storm Earl in early September last year.

    The work was authorized by Larry Penny, the town’s director of natural resources, who was reportedly given the authority to make the decision by an agent of the State Department of Environmental Conservation, who asked that the work be documented with photographs.

    At the job on Tuesday afternoon, Mr. Grimes spoke about Irene and about his vision of how downtown Montauk can be protected from future storms. He said the ideal green scenarios that have been talked about, “retreat,” that is, moving vulnerable buildings back from the beach, or mining sand continuously from offshore, were far too costly and impractical. He said he had talked to motel owners about driving steel sheathing directly seaward of their buildings parallel to the beach as a last defense with dunes and dune grass in front of the steel. 

    “What gets me is, it won’t hurt the beach and we have the technology,” he said. Mr. Grimes warned that abandoning the beachfront posed other risks, not the least of which was damage to a water main just north of the beach area.

    Before Irene arrived on Sunday, owners of a house at Georgica Beach placed sand bags in front of their beach access to block storm surge. “The bags are on their property,” said Larry Cantwell, the East Hampton Village administrator. In question, however, is the fencing placed on the beach in front of the sand bags. The fencing was the property owner’s claim to the beach, Mr. Cantwell said.

    Mr. Cantwell said the owners reasoned that because the metes and bounds of their land extended, before it eroded, to the spot marked by the seaward end of their fence, the beach was now theirs. According to a man who spoke to a spokesman for the property owner, the plan was to close off the beach property in question with a hard structure. If that is true, the plan is likely to face strong opposition from the East Hampton Town Trustees, Diane McNally, the trustees’ presiding officer, said yesterday.

    Surfers have posted signs in protest of the fence, one saying, “Su playa es mi playa” (Your beach is my beach).

    Ms. McNally reported that Lazy Point, a community fronting Gardiner’s Bay and built upon trustee-owned land, was not damaged.

    All day Tuesday, Mr. Penny assessed erosion damage throughout town. In many places his department had measured beaches in order to have a comparison after Irene passed.    In the interest of safety, all of the oceanfront road ends were closed by the town. Although there were complaints from people who wanted to observe the fury, the order was apparently a good call, as most beach road ends were flooded by storm surge especially during an extra high tide Sunday morning. Fortunately, because waves and wind struck Montauk’s beaches with a direct blow from the south, beaches avoided the scouring caused when waves and current cut east to west, as happened during Earl.

    “Even so, Montauk on the ocean side lost 50 percent of its sand,” Mr. Penny said. The Ditch Plain area also lost sections of dune and hardpan, including a section that had held an old Pontiac since the 1940s, by the look of it. Tony Velar, a surfer, discovered the car’s grille, hood, and hood ornament where they had fallen, intact, from an eroded dune. Gin Beach on the north side of Montauk lost nothing, and the vulnerable Soundview community, also on Block Island Sound, looked none the worse for wear, Mr. Penny said.

    Soundview was spared because “the power [of the storm] was coming in from the south,” Mr. Penny said. Nonetheless, the beach just north of the town parking lot at Gosman’s Restaurant lost a good deal of sand, as it usually does after a blow.

    On the oceanside, half the beach in front of the Benson Preserve on Old Montauk Highway was taken away by storm waves. The beach house in front of Gurney’s Inn was damaged. Mr. Penny said Gurney’s was given an emergency permit to buttress its beach with sand.

    Georgica Beach in East Hampton Village took the worst hit in the township. Dunes were sheared off to make precipitous cliffs of sand. “It’s severe,” Mr. Cantwell said of the beach erosion in the village, “but the road end at Georgica has been threatened before, and it’s come back.”

    Montaukers are not prone to looking a gift horse in the mouth: The horse in question this time was Irene and the gift took the form of hundreds of surf clams dredged from the bottom offshore by the storm’s huge swells, dragged ashore by her violent storm surge, and left broken on the beach just east of Ditch Plain.

    People who had come down to gauge the extent of Irene’s wrath included fishermen who saw the broken clams as a serendipitous supply of bait for sea bass and, later in the season, cod.

    There was general agreement that Montauk, in fact all of East Hampton, had dodged a bullet. East Hampton Town received only two inches of rain, and although winds gusted over 70 miles per hour at times, they came from the south during the height of the storm and west as the storm passed.

    At the height of the storm, the ocean flowed into the Ditch Plain community through the town parking lot at the East Deck Motel. The front row of trailer homes at the Montauk Shores Condominium complex received some flooding. Its stone revetment was not overtopped, but was spared that fate by only a few feet. Had there been more rain, the flooding might have been extreme.

    Montauk’s commercial fishing fleet was also spared the fierce north wind and accompanying tidal surge that so often occur when a retreating hurricane’s counter-clockwise rotation aims its full force through the harbor mouth.

    It was clear from the preparations that citizens and officials alike took Irene seriously. Shops were boarded up, but many remained open on Saturday and even Sunday during the storm. The Montauk I.G.A. kept its doors open despite the billows of ocean spray that flew over the dunes to greet shoppers.

    Reached Monday morning, East Hampton Town Councilwoman Theresa Quigley said whether the town had in fact dodged a bullet was “a function of perspective,” but in general she said that it could have been worse. “Nobody died or was harmed that I know of except for losing electric.”

    “I drove all over town on Sunday. There were big trees down all over. It looks like the highway department did an incredible job. I think they must have worked all night clearing trees.” 

    If missing a really good surf session can be considered an injury, then dozens of disappointed surfers were injured on the afternoon before the storm when Montauk Point State Park was closed, cutting them off from excellent waves at Turtle Cove and off the Lighthouse itself.

    At Tuesday night’s East Hampton School Board meeting an existential question sparked a lively and sometimes prickly debate: If the right teacher comes along at the wrong time, do you hire or not?

    The question came as a result of the interim superintendent’s recommendations to hire an experienced, bilingual kindergarten teacher, as a one-year leave replacement, at a salary of $87,795, compared to the budgeted amount for the position, which was in the mid-$60,000 range.

    Gina Kraus, who will take over as elementary school principal in January on the departure of Christopher Tracey, made an impassioned plea before the board.

    “We looked at many candidates,” she said, “and along came a teacher who is bringing us something that we need. We have 89 kindergartners this year, and over 40 of them are coming to us with almost no English. We needed someone like this. She’s the one.”

    Alison Anderson and George Aman, two board members, were set against it.

    “I resent the implication that because we find a problem with this appointment, that we don’t want the best for our children,” Dr. Aman said. “That is unfair.”

    “I’m sure she is experienced and a terrific teacher,” said Ms. Anderson. “But at this time I feel it’s financially irresponsible to be spending that much. I don’t think this has been thought through. We haven’t even had one conversation about the 2-percent tax cap.” Ms. Anderson was referring to the recent Albany decision to impose a 2-percent cap on the real property tax levy for school districtsand local governments, which will affect the budget for the 2012-13 school year.

    “We still have lawsuit attorney fees, teacher contracts — it’s unreasonable,” she said.

    Jacqueline Lowey, another board member, had a different take. “The responsibility for hiring teachers to make this a successful district should be left to the school principals and the superintendent,” she said, calling recent English as a second language elementary school test scores “abysmal.”

    “If we’re going to hold them accountable, which I think we should, then we need to give them the tools to manage,” Ms. Lowey said.

    She pointed out that the teacher would have taken the job for less, but the salary for a teacher with her particular qualifications (Step 11/D on the salary scale) was specified in the district’s contract with its teachers union and the board’s hands were tied by this. “We hope that teachers will work with us cooperatively in the future to bring down some of these costs,” Ms. Lowey said. “This provision just cost the district $20,000 that we didn’t need to spend.”

    Arthur Goldman, a teacher at the high school, spoke on this during a public commentary period. “Of course she would accept less,” he said. “Most teachers would, they would take $10,000 a year and offer to wash all your cars for the opportunity to teach. That’s why we have collective bargaining.”

    “We should not have even interviewed this candidate,” said Dr. Aman. “We cannot afford to do this. It’s irresponsible.”

    Richard Burns, the interim superintendent and former director of pupil personnel, interjected. “We have to provide teachers who possess the skills to reach diverse learners. I just came on board, but I will not compromise on hiring great teachers for our students.”

    “I hope the taxpayers agree with you on that,” said Ms. Anderson.

    “If I was set down in a classroom in China, and given a test in Chinese at the end of the year, I would be classified as limited,” Mr. Burns said. His concern, he continued, was that young children who were overcoming the obstacle of learning English as a second language might somehow get reclassified to special education as a result of poor test scores. Mr. Burns, who has been with the district since 1990, is also a former chairman of the special education department.

    “We were fortuitously blessed with this wonderful candidate moving to our district,” Mr. Burns said. “If this person becomes the leader we expect her to be, it will be worth it.”

    Ms. Anderson stuck to her guns. “I think it’s very disrespectful of the taxpayers to disregard the budget only three to four months after adopting it. I’m not saying she’s not worth it, I’m saying that we can’t afford it.”

    She also made the point that “the board will be the first to be blamed if later on there are cuts because of the 2-percent tax cap. I want to give every child the best education, but are we capable of it? It will come back to haunt us next year when we have to cut programs or lay off teachers.”

    “I think there are plenty of great first and second-year teachers,” Ms. Lowey said. “But in this case, the committee unanimously said, ‘This teacher, for this position, is what we need.’ We have to let them do their jobs.”

    Patricia Hope used an analogy to present the matter. “Think of this school district as a car,” she said. “We’ve spent so much money on chrome, now let’s spend a little on the tires. Because that’s where the rubber meets the road.”

    Rich Wilson, a member of the district’s citizens advisory committee, asked if this could become a permanent position. The answer was yes.

    “I don’t get the bickering,” he said. “This is a $20,000 difference. Education is the most important thing. It’s why we’re all here.”

    The teacher, Luz Rojas Kardaras, was appointed by a 5-to-2 vote, with Ms. Anderson and Dr. Aman opposed.

    Also on Tuesday, the subject of paid chaperones and timers for school games versus the possibility of using volunteers was again brought to the table.

    Joe Vas, the district’s athletic director, pointed out, as he has before, that “crowd control and student safety is the first priority. I have no problem with using volunteers in addition to, but not instead of.”

    Some of the games have had as many as 300 or 400 people at them, he said, and he himself has had to go into the stands on occasion to calm down a riled-up parent.

    He handed out a sheet to the board with the duties assigned a chaperone.

    Ms. Lowey said she would still like to see if a pilot program to train volunteers could be put in place.

    Ms. Anderson pointed out that when she went to games, she wanted to watch her kids play, not keep an eye on the crowd.

    “I think we should go with the recommendations of the staff and let them do their jobs,” Ms. Anderson said.

    Claude Beudert, an educator and coach, brought up an Aug. 31 editorial in The Independent criticizing the board and the athletic director. “I apologize you had to get caught in the middle of this,” he said. “We know you’re passionate, and you agree to disagree.” He paused. “Or you just disagree,” he added, which brought laughter to an otherwise tense evening.

    Mr. Goldman touched on the same editorial, saying, “I would stand, but I’m so angry my legs are shaking.”

    “What you do not challenge becomes true,” he said. “The editorial claims that Joe Vas is forming his own Gestapo. When you compare a coach who values student and spectator safety to the extermination of the Jews — the language is just so egregious, it cannot go unmentioned,” he said.

    Each summer, Les Warner of Betham, Conn., and Jacob Hand of Montauk commune over a broad reach of time, two centuries in fact. It’s a silent reunion given the loud rattle of Mr. Warner’s power mower, plus the fact that Mr. Hand has been buried since September of 1813 in a small cemetery in Montauk that Mr. Warner has tended since 1982.

    Mr. Warner has been with the  Bethany, Conn., Fire Department for 58 years. Each summer, he and his family camp at Hither Hills State Park. He is the self-appointed caretaker of the First House Cemetery and has made it his business to rebuild the low stone wall that borders the boneyard.

    He cuts back encroaching vines and brambles, and mows the grass around the dozen or so headstones. Most have been broken into anonymity. Two of the identifiable stones mark the graves of Jacob Hand, first Montauk Lighthouse keeper, and his daugher, Betsy.

    The cemetery was originally located near First House, literally the first house cattle herders came to while driving their stock “onto” Montauk from East Hampton each summer. The house was first built in 1744 on land that is now a state park. It burned down and was replaced in 1798. It burned a second time and was never rebuilt.

    “When I first came, I wanted to do some exploring,” Mr. Warner said. “The people at the campground said there were dunes and trails. They asked if I’d like to see an old cemetery. In 1981, I discovered it all overgrown with weeds and grass two feet high. The following year, I brought my weed whacker. It was the first time I really saw the stones. It was a pretty spot, but the stone walls were down.”

    Mr. Warner said he started rebuilding the walls 8 to 10 feet at a time. “It was all downhill from there. After the first dozen years, the Parks Department started mowing too.”

    He has since begun to push back the brush from outside the stone walls to give the cemetery a little — “breathing room” is not right — space.       

    Jacob Hand was born in 1733. He married Abigail Conklin and the couple raised four children, Ester, Jerusha, Jared (who took over as lighthouse keeper when his father stepped down) and Betsy. He was already 63 when he began his service. He had come highly recommended.

    “I know of no one that would give better satisfaction than Mr. Hand, a resident on the land and who I understand has applied. He will be entirely satisfatory to the proprietors of the land,” Henry Packer Dering, collector of customs in Sag Harbor wrote to Tench Coxe, commissioner of revenue, in April 1796.

    Mr. Hand ran the Lighthouse frugally for 16 years. “The keeper is a very faithful and careful man and often grows fearful and anxious towards the close of the year that the oil may be expended before a supply may arrive,” Henry Dering wrote.

    He first lighted the lamps in April of 1797, five months after the completion of the Lighthouse, whose construction was authorized by President George Washington in 1792.

    The light itself consisted of two tiers of four lamps arranged like a chandelier. Five gallons of whale oil were consumed every night. The record shows that Mr. Hand was badly cut by flying glass when a storm he described as a tornado broke more than half the glass out of the lantern.

    His job included climbing the 137 steps in the Lighthouse’s circular staircase with a 40-pound jug of whale oil each day. He filled the eight lamps, trimmed the wicks to keep the light steady and bright. His salary was $266.66 per year.

    He left his post in 1812 at the start of the second war between England and her former colony. The British never occupied the Lighthouse, but must have felt it would have been a benefit if they could.

    According to the fading numbers on his headstone, Jacob Hand died on Sept. 21, 1813, less than a year after his son Jared was appointed keeper.

    Mr. Warren said he didn’t actually commune with Mr. Hand as he tended the plot, but “if Jake jumped out of his grave and handed me a cold P.B.R., I would.” That’s Pabst Blue Ribbon beer, he explained.

    Tropical storm Irene, as it pulled north into New England, left roiling seas and downed trees across the South Fork, but it appeared to have spared the region the severe damage that had been feared.

    Power remained out for about a quarter of the residents of East Hampton Town. In a conference call for reporters, the Long Island Power Authority said it was dispatching repair crews at 4 on Sunday afternoon, after winds began to subside.

    In Montauk, members of a town ocean rescue squad were posted at beach accesses to keep away the curious. The ocean did surge during the worst of the storm, with waves and foam spilling along some oceanside streets and around buildings in some low-lying areas of the business district, and some loss of dunes was observable, but structural losses appeared to be limited.

    In Amagansett and East Hampton Village, the story was that of toppled trees and fallen limbs. Part of a tall pine lay across the driveway at the Amagansett School. A tree lay akimbo on the roof of the East Hampton Historical Society. Erosion on Gardiner's Bay appeared to be minimal.

   Larger trees and sections of trees fell in East Hampton and Sag Harbor; many of these appeared to be older trees that showed visible signs of rot or weakness. Crews from Suffolk County, the Town of East Hampton, and the Village of East Hampton initially pushed limbs and trunks from the road, in some places returning later to cut them up.

Homeowners whose properties were damaged during the weekend's storm received good news this morning when the National Weather Service declared that Irene, when it hit here, was a tropical storm and not a hurricane.

Insurance coverage for damage from hurricanes is typically subject to a high deductible.

The declaration, said Tim O'Brien, a vice president of private client services at the Cook, Hall, and Hyde insurance agency in East Hampton, will mean that insurance claims for payments to cover damage from the storm will be processed under the standard provisions of a homeowner's insurance policy rather than under provisions covering hurricanes, which typically set a deductible amount, to be paid by the property owner before insurance will kick in, at 5 percent of the value of a house.

Standard homeowner's insurance deductibles for non-hurricane damage vary according to individual policies, he said. For example, a house insured for $1 million might have a $5,000 or $10,000 deductible for all losses.

Homeowner's policies will generally cover losses from wind damage, such as when a tree falls and hits a house, as well as the ensuing damages from rain that might enter the house.

Damages from rising surface waters -- i.e., a flood -- are not covered by standard homeowner's insurance, Mr. O'Brien said, but only by separate flood insurance policies.

Whether or not removal of debris or fallen trees outside in the yard is covered by homeowner's insurance varies widely, according to individual policies, Mr. O'Brien said. Some policies, he said, might only cover the costs of tree removal if the tree has hit or is leaning against the house.

Mr. O'Brien said Cook, Hall, and Hyde agents were receiving "quite a lot of calls" this morning. The agency's Pantigo Road office was being powered by a generator, he said, though phone service was out, so staffers were standing outside in the parking lot in order to access cell service.

He recommended that owners of properties that have suffered damage as a result of the storm take photographs of the damage, and contact their insurance carriers right away to make a report and ascertain the terms of their coverage. He also advised keeping all receipts for repair work.

 Montaukers are not prone to looking a gift horse in the mouth, the horse in question this time being Hurricane turned Tropical Storm Irene. The gift early Monday morning took the form of hundreds of surf clams dredged from the bottom offshore by Irene’s huge swells, dragged ashore by her violent storm surge, and left broken on the shore just east of Ditch Plain.

People who had come down to gauge the extent of Irene’s wrath included fishermen who saw the broken clams as a serendipitous supply of bait for sea bass and, later in the season, cod.

There was general agreement that Montauk, in fact, all of East Hampton, had dodged a bullet. East Hampton Town received only two inches of rain, and although winds gusted over 70 miles per hour at times, they came from the south during the height of the storm, west as the storm passed. The southerly direction of the wind and ocean swell were indeed a blessing. Had the wind blown from the southeast, as so often happens during northeasters, the erosion would have been far worse.

As it was, Ditch Plain lost most of its remaining dunes. The vulnerable “motel row” in Montauk’s downtown business district was spared even though the storm surge entered through the road ends. Again, the direct approach of wind and surf precluded east-to-west, or west-to-east erosion.

At the height of the storm, the ocean flowed into the Ditch Plain community through the town parking lot at the East Deck Motel. The front row of trailer homes at the Montauk Shores Condominium complex received some flooding, but its stone revetment was not overtopped, though it had only a few feet to spare. Had there been more rain, the flooding might have been extreme.

Montauk’s commercial fishing fleet was also spared the fierce north wind and accompanying tidal surge that so often occurs when a retreating hurricane’s counter-clockwise rotation aims its full force through the harbor mouth.

It was clear from the preparations that citizens and officials alike took Irene seriously. Shops were boarded up but many remained open on Saturday and even Sunday during the storm. The Montauk I.G.A. kept its doors open despite the billows of ocean spray that flew over the dunes to greet shoppers.

Reached Monday morning, East Hampton Town Councilwoman Teresa Quigley said that whether the town had dodged a bullet was “a function of perspective,” but, in general, she said “unofficially” that it could have been worse. “Nobody died or were harmed that I know of except for losing electric.”

“I drove all over town on Sunday. There were big trees down all over. It looks like the highway department did an incredible job. I think they must have worked all night clearing trees,” Ms. Quigley said.

If missing a really good surf session can be considered an injury, then dozens of disappointed surfers were injured on the afternoon before the storm when Montauk Point State Park was closed, cutting them off from excellent waves at Turtle Cove and off the Lighthouse itself.

Forewarned regarding Hurricane Irene, Shanette Barth Cohen, the Hampton Classic's executive director, on Friday announced the cancellation of Opening Day, which was to have been Sunday, and resolved to restart the ordinarily-weeklong hunter-jumper show on Wednesday, Aug. 31.

The three-day postponement was apparently a first for this prestigious show, which in its modern era -- first at the Topping Riding Club in Sagaponack, then at Dune Alpin Farm in East Hampton, and, from 1982 at the 60-acre showgrounds on Snake Hollow Road in Bridgehampton -- has been no stranger to the vagaries of nature.

Jean Lindgren, who, with her husband, Tony Hitchcock, oversaw the Classic for almost 30 years, before Ms. Cohen took over, said during a telephone conversation Saturday that she remembered all sorts of Classic disasters, "but, somehow, the show," she said, "always went on."

According to the Classic's Web site's history section, "the year the show was expanded from a one-day one to a rated five-day show and moved from the Topping Riding Club to Dune Alpin, a hurricane hit just before it was to open, taking down all the tents. They were re-erected and the show started a day and a half late."

"I remember that hurricane -- it arrived almost unannounced," said Ms. Lindgren. "Most people had vans for the horses, so they put them in them and got out. Axes were taken to the tents. They had the show anyway, but without the tents. Tony and I were the caterers that year. We were the only food on the grounds and the power was out. We went to King Kullen, which was where T.J. Maxx is now. They opened the store for us and we went through the dark aisles with flashlights as they added things up. It was all very exciting."

And the tornado? "I don't remember the year, but there was one. They were putting the tents up. They hadn't gotten the stalls in. But the tents all went up in the air. Bud Topping, who was the grounds keeper, ducked under his tractor when he saw grandstand seating fly by. His assistant . . . just stood there, oblivious. I don't think he was very observant. We had an office on Main Street in Bridgehampton. Everything was fine there, and when David Wright, who was the show's second manager, phoned and told us what was happening, we went, 'Ha-ha-ha.' He had a reputation as a joker. But when we went over, it was as he'd said, everything was gone! Completely destroyed. It was a couple of days before the show was to begin, the horses weren't there yet. Tony was calling people in the party business, asking them if they had any tents lying around in their basements. We took anything we could get and, yes, the show went on."

"The first year we were in Bridgehampton, I remember seeing Tinka Topping and Agnetta Currey up to their knees in mud, trying to divert the water so it wouldn't come into the tents. Remember this had been a potato field. I remember riders helping to push an ambulance off after a rider had fallen. I'd just bought a new car and there was mud over the hood and I remember Bud pulling me out. . . ."

"One year," Ms. Lindgren continued, "we had to cancel the Friday classes, which included the Grand Prix qualifying class, because of the threat of a hurricane or a tropical storm. It was a big deal because of that qualifying class. But people called and said they had parties arranged and couldn't they come anyway. We said we didn't mind. The tents were holding."

Speaking of tents, she said that "they'll be able to put them back up easily this year -- they've flattened the stalls and they've lashed the tents on top of them."

Last year, she said, Hurricane Earl, which was moving up the East Coast as the show was under way, had Barth Cohen and her staff wondering whether they'd have to close early.

As it turned out, Earl was the hurricane that wasn't, though the results of some hunter classes were doubled to make sure things went smoothly. There were no cancellations, although the Grand Prix Qualifier was moved ahead a day. 

And again, the show went on.

    Over the drone of an outboard motor and the sound of water slapping the bottom of the Lesters’ green skiff, Kelly Lester of Amagansett half shouted, “I’d like to prove that Paul and I did nothing wrong.”

    Less than an hour had passed since she and her brother stood before Justice Lisa R. Rana in East Hampton Town Justice Court on July 8 on charges that they had broken state law and sold fish illegally.

    Mr. Lester steered the boat standing as it headed for one of two traps to be lifted east of Napeague Harbor. Ms. Lester sat amidships in orange oilers. Louis Arceri, known as L.J., sat hunched in the bow behind stacks of plastic bushel baskets and the three dip nets they would use to bail fish from the box portion of the traps.

    Arguably the oldest fishing method in these parts, the traps are net fences hung from white oak stakes. The leader section of net runs offshore and leads the fish through an inner pound to the box where they collect. The box is like the cod end of a dragnet. It is net all round including the bottom, which can be raised. The system works by taking advantage of a school’s natural instinct to head offshore when it meets an obstacle, in this case the net fence.

    A serious legal obstacle was what the Lesters faced earlier that day, one that brought a number of supporters to the courthouse including Dan Rodgers from Riverhead, their lawyer, fellow baymen, and the Rev. Steven E. Howarth of the Amagansett Presbyterian Church, who led the group in prayer. The prayer included a petition for the fair enforcement of fishing laws.

    Mr. Rodgers said that what happened on July 8 was not only unfair, but a violation of civil rights, and he intended to prove it. Mr. Rodgers had defended the Lesters last year when Paul Lester and his brother, Dan Lester, accepted a plea arrangement with the state prosecutor stemming from two felony and five misdemeanor charges for taking fish out of season and without commercial licenses back in 2008 and 2009.

    “This time they’ve gone too far, with Kelly in particular,” Mr. Rodgers told supporters. “She is trying to make a living, a mother, and she’s charged with a crime for having a self-serve clam stand.”

    “People around the country are trying to make ends meet, an honest living. We have every intention of going to trial. We will not be interested in a plea bargain. Either this is dismissed or we’ll take it to the Supreme Court of the United States,” the lawyer said before entering the court to ask that the case be set for trial as soon as possible.

    On July 8, an enforcement officer from the State Department of Environmental Conservation wrote three summonses. One was to Ms. Lester, alleging that she was selling shellfish without the proper permit. She keeps a roadside clam and egg stand in front of her house on Abraham’s Path in East Hampton.

    Two other tickets were written to her brother Paul Lester for allegedly having an untagged carton of fish and being in ossession of fish beyond the daily quota. Neither Lester was home at the time the summonses were written. Ms. Lester said she was out picking up her young son.

    According to Mr. Rodgers, the conservation officer seized the untagged box of fish from the Lesters’ backyard and took it to Stuart’s Seafood Shop nearby, where it was sold — the check made out to the state.

    Mr. Rodgers said on Monday that the D.E.C. officer had searched the Lester properly illegally. “If he’d waited they could have explained. Two boxes had the proper tags. The third box belonged to another fisherman who has a legal fishing license. The tag was on the ground next to the box. He took the third box, assumed they were Paul’s, and cited him for being over the limit.”

    The lawyer said that state conservation police had extraordinary powers to seize fish thought to be illegally harvested or for sale contrary to the law. However, they did not have the right to search private property without probable cause. “It’s a due process question,” Mr. Rodgers said.

    He said that while at Stuart’s, the conservation officer was shown that the tag had someone else’s name on it, but he was reported as saying, “it’s too late.”

    According to the Lesters’ lawyer, the officer added to the box that had been found nearby in a separate container. Ms. Lester said they were fish that a friend was filleting for her dinner. “These were not fish for commercial consumption. They were not going to the market.”

    The fish caught in the traps after the arraignment last Thursday were going to market, however.

    The trappers ducked as the skiff entered the spider web of lines that hold the trap stakes in place. The skiff was brought broadside to the box section. The clove hitches that held up the working side of the net box were untied from opposing stakes. That section of net was brought into the boat. The three trappers hauled it toward the surface along with its catch. 

    The first trap held a number of mackerel and a few dozen sea robins, orange wings spread wide. There was a fluke that Mr. Arceri put in a basket where he kept a few fish to take to people at the senior center.

    Mr. Lester said the trap had caught a few butterfish in recent days, a sign that “things were moving,” the season was progressing through its normal rotation of species. He said it was a mystery why bluefish were dying in the trap. Unusual. A few skates flapped around the box. “We could wing ’em,” Ms. Lester said, meaning harvest them for their wings, worth about $1.50 per pound. They were tossed over the side.

    About a bushel of porgies was taken before the floor of the box was lowered, its side lifted, clove hitches retied. On to the next.

    What a difference a trap makes. The second trap was west of the first by several hundred yards. Once the boat was broadside to the box, Mr. Arceri let out a cry. The box was filled with porgies. Let the bailing begin. Once the daily limit was reached by a conservative read of the bushel baskets, the remaining porgies were left in the trap and the skiff headed back to the Napeague launching ramp and the trucks that would take the fish to market.

    En route, brother and sister discussed what appeared to be confusion at the arraignment. Justice Rana had told their attorney and the prosecutors that the original ticket was defective, and an attempt had been made to cross out and correct the charges as originally written. She told them a corrected “long-form” version had been supplied to the court.

    Mr. Rodgers later explained that the original tickets had charged the two with misdemeanor crimes, but that the long-form version of the summons listed the infractions as merely violations of state law. Mr. Rodgers said he thought it odd that no one from the D.E.C.’s enforcement arm had attended the arraignment — “They always appear.”

    On Tuesday, a spokesman for the D.E.C. confirmed that the ticketing officer had entered the Lesters’ property and “walked around back to observe a building designed to process seafood,” where boxes of fish were found. A man was there filleting fish and identified the boxes of fish as belonging to Paul Lester. The number of fish was over the limit, he said. The spokesman confirmed the reduction in Ms. Lester’s charges because she later obtained the proper permit. That Paul Lester’s alleged infractions were downgraded could not be confirmed, however.  

    Mr. Rodgers said he intended to defend the fishermen against the original criminal charge. “There’s no doubt they’re out to harass the Lester family. It’s horse hooey,” Mr. Rodgers said.