Recovery

I always said it would be a cold day in December before we'd patronize the 7/11 that snuck in under the radar in 2010 (the beginning of the end, in my book, both literally and figuratively), but actually all it took was a power outage. About 5 minutes after our alarm went off this morning, much of Montauk lost electricity. 7/11 had theirs, and, more importantly, hot java. Missing my flat whites at Coffee Tauk!

Despite the controversy over the 7/11 in MTK, it's
doubtful there's another in the country with a view like this one.

The outage was a painful reminder that Montauk is still slowly recovering from the damage wrought by Hurricane Sandy, primarily along its coastline, where the sands have literally shifted, as the town scrambles to replace dunes that held many of the seaside motels in place, and build dunes where previously none existed at points of beach access. They're making progress, but as one bulldozer operator told us this morning, when we inquired about the effectiveness of the giant sand bags his crew was filling and placing at the corner of South Edison and beach, "It'll stop the erosion for a few hours," he said. "But it's a battle we're not going to win."

The Dunes Building at the Atlantic Terrace balanced 

precariously on same the morning after Sandy...

Under the boardwalk

ATM's oceanfront today

Bulldozers: The only dune buggies you see in Montauk these days

Shifting sands: Dunes where none existed before at points of beach access.

Our beach access, however, still a bit dicey