Late Sunday afternoon, amid all the talk about the flooding, downed trees, eroded beaches, and the loss of electricity by thousands in East Hampton Town, someone nailed it: “This was a miss,” he said.

    Though predicted to be far more dangerous, Hurricane Irene shifted course and weakened considerably as it reached our latitudes. As late as 24 hours before it raked ashore in New Jersey and rumbled into upstate New York, it was forecast to have sustained winds of 100 miles per hour with higher gusts and to make landfall more or less in the center of Long Island. Yes, this storm was nowhere near as powerful as the devastating Hurricane of 1938. Had it struck the Island where and at the levels predicted, however, the effect would have been catastrophic.

    Given what authorities knew the day before, the evacuations of low-lying parts of New York City, Fire Island, and parts of eastern Long Island were appropriate. The region got lucky, as it turned out, but, given how long it takes to get people out of harm’s way, evacuation orders were the right call, as was the boarding up of windows. And it can’t hurt if homeowners are left with a stock of storm supplies: The hurricane season’s peak is only beginning.

    Over all, East Hampton officials’ level of preparation was adequate, with a couple of concerns that should be addressed. The most serious was the town’s lapse in not trying to close several oceanfront road-ends in Montauk. This was surprising, since emergency preparedness staff had said previously that bulldozing or sandbagging these vulnerable spots was planned. As a result, the ocean poured into downtown Montauk and the Ditch Plain area through man-made gaps. Had steps been taken to block them, the flooding could have been reduced.

    Town officials need look no further for an example of what can work than Atlantic Drive on Napeague, where residents took it upon themselves to wall off the road-end. This is the second time they have banded together to do this, and this time it paid off. As The East Hampton Press reported, the effort appeared to have held the ocean from surging into the neighborhood.

    Officials should take heed to attempt to close all of these passages next time around. The dunes are there for a reason; openings in them are an invitation to disaster.

    In the area of communication, the Town of East Hampton gets poor marks. The messages coming out of Town Hall were too few as well as trivial and confusing. We learned what most people knew (to stay off the roads and away from the beaches) and that the town waste-transfer stations were going to be opened on Wednesday to accept post-storm debris. This is in contrast to the Town of Southampton, which issued advisories every couple of hours and did its best to keep the public informed. And, if you wanted to see what East Hampton was saying on the town’s official Web site during the height of the storm, you couldn’t; it was inaccessible until about mid-day Sunday. In the absence of information, some get panicky. A better job has to be done in the future.

    Okay, so maybe Irene was not quite a miss after all. There are lessons to be learned and more work to be done for when the next one — inevitably — comes.

    For Long Islanders, Irene was the hurricane that wasn’t, thanks to a last-moment change of course, faster-than-expected weakening, and a downgrade to tropical-storm status. Still, in its wake, the storm left some 40 people dead across the Eastern Seaboard, with horrendous inland flooding, property damage that is still being tallied, and as many as 750,000 utility customers without electricity in New York alone as of press time.

    Here, with power in some streets not to be restored for as long as a week, the unfolding story is one of economic disruption, lost business, and destroyed inventory.

    Poignantly underscoring how hard-hit some businesses have been, an East Hampton ice cream shop was selling scoops for $1 apiece on Monday as its ample pre-Labor Day weekend supply rather quickly melted away. Some business owners will have insurance that covers this kind of loss; others will not. 

     The silver lining of Irene’s dark economic cloud is that other shopkeepers and many of those in the hospitality trade are profitably helping residents make the best of the blackout. Those restaurants that did manage to reopen quickly have been bustling, serving people whose stoves are out of commission along with their lights. The Palm in East Hampton was packed on Sunday night, with a long line of cars waiting for valet parking, and Astro Pizza in Amagansett, which was up and running even before the winds died down, offered dinner alfresco by torchlight.

    Meanwhile, the storm’s many downed trees and broken limbs have been a boon to those with chain saws, rakes, and trucks ready to haul away the debris. Cash got you a quick cleanup Monday, as willing hands emerged to make quick work of it. As night fell, others were loading roadside logs into their vehicles, presumably to split for firewood to sell or for their own use. If you were selling batteries, bottled water, or canned goods before the storm, you were making money as Irene approached; gas stations, too, emptied their tanks with speed. (And at Hamptons premium prices, you can be sure there’s a hint of a smile on some vendors’ faces this week.)

    Labor Day, which symbolically ends the season here, is a kind of reckoning day for those whose year-round livelihood depends on the summer trade. If it goes well, they have made it through until 2012. We shouldn’t forget that hurricane season isn’t over until the end of November. Let’s all cross our fingers for a good holiday weekend: fair skies, troops of relieved Wall Streeters seeking sunshine, and no more dire bulletins from the National Hurricane Center.

    East Hampton Town may well be on its way to revisiting a lengthy discussion about the outdoor lighting code, but just why is the first question the members of the town board — and the public — should be asking.

    The way Susan Harder, a dark skies activist and the chief architect of the existing rules, sees it, the changes are intended to weaken the provisions, making them unenforceably vague. As far as we know, only a handful of business owners are critics of the lighting code, saying complying with it would be too expensive and, besides, leave their premises too dim. Safety may be worth reconsidering, but residents should be skeptical of a wholesale effort to rewrite the town’s policy.

    Passed in 2006, East Hampton’s dark skies law provided a four-year “sunset” period for commercial properties to come into compliance. About a year ago, the town board decided to rewrite the law, calling it imperfect, and lifted the compliance requirement. The goal was to preserve to the extent possible the visibility of the natural night sky; now its objectives and effectiveness are in question.

    One wrinkle that should come as no surprise to Town Hall watchers is that an even earlier law, dating from 1984, to the effect that sources of light cannot be visible across property lines, has always been ignored. This has long been a subject of puzzlement; of all the violations of town rules, we would think this would be among the easiest to spot and seek remedies. If the town board wants to prove its commitment to dark skies, it could start by demanding action by its enforcement officials.

    The revision is in draft form, with Councilwoman Theresa Quigley taking the lead. At its core apparently is the creation of lighting zones, which are a departure from the existing law’s blanket approach. At first blush, the imposition of zones would appear to defeat the entire purpose of dark skies rules. Brightly lit parts of town are visible from miles away; light travels. In fact, on many nights it is easy to see ambient light above towns and cities as far away as the Connecticut and Rhode Island shores. Light “trespass” knows no zones, if you will.

    East Hampton Town at night is bright enough already and needs no further glare. According to an Aug. 9 town board discussion, the draft would create a peculiar “waterfront” zone, in which limits would be in place for an ineffective 20 feet from the shore. Why? Who knows?

    It is not surprising that Ms. Harder has said, in effect, that the changes would be a disaster for the town’s previously agreed-upon goal of limiting nighttime light pollution. Given her excellent reputation here and in other communities where she has worked on this issue, there is ample reason to take her criticisms seriously.

    There appears to be no compelling reason for the town board to take a whack at rewriting the lighting law, unless its goal is to weaken it. While details are still being worked out, there is reason to fear the worst. 

    As expected, samples taken at South Lake Beach in Montauk after Monday’s rain showed the presence of human waste. The water would be clean enough to swim in by Thursday, at least according to Suffolk Health Department standards, but, frankly, we doubt many people — if they knew about the test results — would want to. The question for East Hampton Town is how officials should respond now that they have been reminded of the problem.

    South Lake is one of two beaches within East Hampton Town’s boundaries where post-rainfall sampling shows unsafe conditions. The other is Havens Beach in Sag Harbor, where bureaucratic inaction has long delayed remediation. Two troubled beaches are two too many. Residents should expect those in charge to make safe bathing areas a top priority.

    A cautionary note comes from the recent experience of Northport Village, which was cited by the Environmental Protection Agency for inadequate stormwater and wastewater discharge management — violations under the Clean Water Act. After inspections, the agency found that the village had failed at a planning level and also had maintenance problems with catch basins and drainpipes, conditions that have been observed here as well.

    Northport has until Sept. 30 to beef up its road-runoff efforts, until Nov. 30 to deal with non-point sources into its harbor, and until Jan. 31 to complete a full pollution audit. Penalties could cost the village up to $37,500 a day if it fails to meet the deadlines.

    East Hampton Town cannot wait until federal inspectors appear on our shores to improve the situation. It must identify and eliminate the sources of human waste at South Lake and work with Sag Harbor to finally solve the Havens Beach problem. These steps, though urgent, will take time. For this season, officials should post detailed warnings at these beaches to allow those who might go in the water to make informed choices.

    If buck-passing were an Olympic sport, East Hampton Town would get the gold. That, at least, is the consensus of an increasing number of Montauk residents and others irked by the wild popularity of several restaurants and watering holes and all that comes along with them.

    East Hampton Town Supervisor Bill Wilkinson has been criticized for telling neighbors of one particularly troubled area that they should ignore the noise and traffic because the peak summer season is nearly over. Councilwoman Theresa Quigley has chimed in that she likes seeing young, cash-spending folks around. Moreover, the pair insist there is nothing much that the town itself can do to reduce annoyances. Others tell beleaguered residents to shut their windows and turn on the air-conditioners — if they have them — to drown out the noise. But this welcome-wagon attitude is in stark contrast to that of East Hampton Village, where officials managed to shut down a party palace on a residential street before it even held its first event.

    Gilt City, an online discount-deal marketplace, had hoped to run a series of dinners, yoga classes, and film screenings at a house it rented on Fithian Lane. Learning of the company’s plans, the village convened an emergency meeting at which its board of trustees decided to seek a court injunction. That’s all it took for the Gilt City people to decamp for an alternative location in Southampton Town. The village didn’t even have to have its day in court.

    In East Hampton Town, by contrast, pre-existing businesses in residential zones, such a restaurants, hotels, and inns, have been allowed to expand illegally. While this is well known, Town Hall has turned a deliberately blind eye, refusing again and again to enforce many laws on its own books — many having to do with capacity, lighting, and, of course, parking. Now that the success of these sketchy operations has spawned traffic, noise, garbage, and other problems for neighbors — and town police — the town board has made tepid excuses and further averted its gaze.

    Unfortunately for those who live near these mostly seasonal businesses, these and other quality-of-life issues have become politicized. Democrats have been speaking out in an effort to damage the supervisor, a Republican who is seeking re-election in November. This could have the effect of delaying any meaningful relief, as the supervisor and Ms. Quigley might well be loath to do anything that could be (wrongly, in our view) perceived as giving in to the other side.

    As the village’s swift reaction in Gilt City and similar matters show, there is plenty that can be done to rein in improper commercialization or expansion of businesses on residential properties, as well as nuisances involving noise and cars. Unlike Gilt City, a restaurant or nightclub may have pre-standing legal rights to be where it is, but the town could use temporary, police-emergency parking restrictions to limit overflow crowds — as has been done in the village — and change local laws so that fines for violations have real and substantial impact. The town board needs to ignore political posturing and do the right thing for the residents of these plagued neighborhoods.

    Get tough, East Hampton; it’s about time. As the supervisor himself said, there are only so many weekends of summer left — and taxpayers should be able to enjoy every minute of them, no matter where their houses happen to be.

    East Hampton Village took a small but significant step late last month in banning the use of certain plastic bags by retailers and restaurants. It is only the second local government in the State of New York to enact such a measure, after Southampton Village. Following the village board’s sensible decision, we hope that the Town of East Hampton will put similar restrictions in place.

    The new village law will give retailers until early next year to exhaust their supplies. Once the six-month grace period is up, however, places like the chain supermarket Waldbaum’s will have the option of providing customers with recycled-paper bags or expecting them to bring along their own bags, as some shoppers already do. Exempted are bags larger than 28-by-36 inches and those thick enough — 2.25 mils, for the record — to be used again.

    For example, the distinctive white-and-orange bags from the high-end grocery Citarella are likely to remain in circulation; the wispy ones from the Chinese takeout place off Newtown Lane as well as the supermarket will be no more. The Ladies Village Improvement Society, whose members recycle plastic sacks for use in the Bargain Books and Bargain Box shops, will, like other nonprofits, be exempt from compliance.

    Plastic bags are part of a much larger picture of the United States’ dependence on the fossil fuels used to make them. Global energy security is (or should be) a top concern for Washington. While a village like East Hampton can make only a tiny contribution to reducing this country’s dependence on imported oil, every bit helps. After the bags are used, they end up in landfills or flutter off into the environment, where they slowly break down into ever-smaller fragments and can then work their way into the marine and terrestrial food chains.

    Southampton Village led the way, and Southampton Town officials are in preliminary discussions about a townwide ban. Suffolk lawmakers have from time to time considered the possibility, but have failed to take action, though there is still hope. East Hampton Town, which must deal with the hundreds of thousands of these bags that pass through its waste facilities each year, would benefit directly from reducing the stream. It should consider a ban at its earliest convenience.

    East Hampton Village officials deserve a hearty cry of “Well done!” for this unabashedly bold move to help the planet.

    A war for the future of Lake Montauk is on, and the battle going on right now is about docks. No sooner did the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals allow one property owner to extend his pier farther into the lake, than another decided to take his chance. If this second applicant manages to convince the Z.B.A. of his case, expect more to follow.

    Lake Montauk, unlike East Hampton’s other waterways, is the responsibility of the town board; the town trustees manage our other bays and harbors. The trustees have long had a strict no-new-docks policy, and they have gone to great lengths to limit what happens along their shorelines.

    Lake Montauk, on the other hand, suffers from its general popularity and proximity to world-class fishing grounds. Unfortunately, upland conditions have added to the deterioration of the lake’s water quality as development has been allowed to proceed with only minimal limits. Another negative factor is a thick clay layer over the soil in some places, which helps speed waste from septic systems along in the groundwater, much of which enters the lake fairly rapidly.

    A few docks will not break the lake. However, taken together with all of its other stresses, plans for any new construction on or near this important waterway should be subject to the strictest environmental review, and existing violations should be prosecuted to the fullest.

    The joint East Hampton Town and Village Disabilities Advisory Board has issued a call for the public to help it develop a list of spots where access by the disabled is a problem. Civic-minded citizens and officials should make it a priority. The committee has only met irregularly, but its chairman, Glenn Hall of Amagansett, is eager to take problems with accessibility, whether to public or business places, to the right officials.

    As a former disabilities committee chairman has pointed out, in several instances East Hampton Town itself is apparently in violation of its own access policy, as well as state and federal law. Two problems Richard Rosenthal cited were at Town Hall, where assisted-listening devices were not provided, and at the entrance to the Town Justice Court. There, the wheelchair ramp is a lumpy splash of asphalt, while handicapped parking is tucked away senselessly around a corner of the building without proper pavement markings.

    The Americans with Disabilities Act is intended to ensure that all citizens have equal access to workplaces and government offices. However, the act can have no effect unless citizens and officials alike speak out about where changes are necessary. Furthermore, town and village officials should not let budget restraints interfere with quick corrective action. We have heard that East Hampton Town Supervisor Bill Wilkinson has taken notice of these problems and is working to correct them. This work is to be encouraged.

    Tucked away in a recent report on the quality of Suffolk’s water is a striking image: a map showing in years how much time it takes for rainwater to get in the ground and reach eastern Long Island’s bays, streams, and harbors. The graphic is meaningful in that it illustrates just how long it takes for contaminants to move from one point to another, as well as the time it takes for pollution-reduction efforts to be reflected in surface water quality.

    For regional planners and elected officials, the map and the document from which it comes — the Suffolk Comprehensive Water Resources Management Plan — make for a sobering reminder of the challenges ahead in protecting marine ecosystems and drinking water.

    For some time now, private organizations, like the Concerned Citizens of Montauk, Peconic Baykeeper, Nature Conservancy, and Group for the East End, have been raising the alarm, but responses, particularly in East Hampton Town, have been wanting. This may be because the town’s leaders have other priorities, lack  understanding of the scale of the risks, or have little willingness to take them on. Even longer term, rising sea level is predicted to reduce supplies of potable waters on both the North and South Forks.

    Fortunately, the crisis is not imminent; the county report indicates that groundwater will remain adequate until 2030. But two decades can come and go all too quickly. And in some coastal locations, the demand for water may exceed the limited and shallow freshwater aquifer more rapidly than in other areas of the East End.

    Adding to a sense of urgency is the report’s finding that tests have shown increasing levels of contaminants — nitrates, volatile organic compounds, and pesticides — over the last two decades. The study’s authors recommend continued implementation of groundwater quality regulations, new rules to reduce the impact of future development, improving and monitoring wastewater from existing houses and businesses, and, perhaps most important, open space protection. This recommendation is described in the report as the most effective means of protecting ground and surface waters. No news there, but a welcome reminder.    

    Immediate testing and protections for the roughly 28 percent of Suffolk residents who get water from private wells is suggested. Also on a to-be-considered list are a county law mandating odd-even lawn watering days, mandating sensors that can shut off landscape irrigation when it rains, tiered billing rates to encourage conservation, and other water-wise measures. The study’s authors call for Suffolk to commit funding for the staff and technical resources necessary to protect ground and surface waters for future generations.

    Unfortunately, East Hampton Town appears to be wading in a groundwater problem of its own. Its septic wastewater treatment plant on Springs-Fireplace Road has been cited by the state for discharge violations. As the town board moves to correct this, board members are likely to become more focused than they have been on water quality, maybe even taking the time to sit down and read the county report and take stock of its recommendations.

    Groundwater may move gradually, but government can be even slower. This is an issue that cannot wait for another day or a different political or economic climate. The time for constructive, effective steps on water protection for the long term is now.

    The sperm whale calf that died on a rocky Montauk beach on July 30 did more than tell darkly of the mysteries of the deep. It brought to mind the awful time in April 2010, when a young humpback whale languished in the East Hampton surf. This time, the Montauk calf died relatively quickly, unlike 2010 when the larger humpback hung on for the better part of three days before succumbing to a shot from a high-powered rifle and a dose of phenobarbital.

    Now, as then, some people are critical of the time both cetaceans spent marooned before they died, saying a more humane, speedier method of dispatching the huge animals must be found.

    One expert in marine mammals said that quick, if bloody, methods for euthanizing whales could be used by those who know how, and could have worked in the Montauk whale’s case. He criticized the length of time it took before both whales died. Other experts have defended the official responses, pointing out that whale strandings are very rare and that no one has much experience with knowing what to do when one must be put down.

    Of course, this would not have been the case a century ago, when East Hampton’s whalemen still watched the surf for telltale spouts. The old killing implements hang in museums hereabouts, and, if someone still knew how they were used, even the largest whale could be dispatched in a hurry. In those days, the boatheader would creep to the front of a light, 28-foot, offshore whaleboat to kill the whale with a 15-foot-long, razor-sharp lance. In time, the men turned to so-called bomb guns, but they apparently never worked very well and the more sure results of an experienced hand and a well-honed blade were preferred.

    Those who work with whales say that a modern analog to the time-honored lance can be found — a means of more quickly dispatching these creatures when there is no hope of recovery. The federal government, whose responsibilities include marine mammals, and the Riverhead Foundation, which handles strandings on Long Island, should work with local, willing veterinarians to take care of these majestic animals more swiftly when their time has come.