Fire Island Lighthouse Shines On

Spent the morning thru mid-afternoon at the lighthouse along with my fellow Sunday vols.  She's gonna need some rehab.  No really bad structural damage to any of the buildings, but things look awfully messy, the dunes out in front of her have been completely flattened, and just about all of our boardwalks leading to and from the parking lots have been destroyed.

She is still standing straight

Bambi and Faline have been romping around her. . .

Some of the crew: Doris, Sue, Dave, George, Flo and Lorraine

Terry and George are our January birthday celebrants

I am (ahem) tastefully omitting a photo I took of Dave holding up a certain handknitted object that Wes had gotten as a gift from a girlfriend(?)  If you want to know what it was, send me a personal request note!
 

The "grounds crew" (aka "the chain gang") filling the ruts and potholes in our driveway. Others among us stayed in the keeper's house, vacuuming and re-arranging things there (it was in need of a lot of work indoors, too!)

Our driveway out to Burma Road.  There used to be 10 to 15 foot dunes between Burma Road and the ocean.  None remain.  The dunes all up and down the coastline are gone, nothing left but FLAT sand.  Also gone is the newly-installed (only this past summer) boardwalk that led from in front of our driveway thru the dunes.  That boardwalk will not be replaced, only the ones that ran east-to-west will eventually (we can only hope) be rebuilt.

Looking eastward, towards the Ranger Station.  No dunes as far as the eye can see.

The grounds crew's return to home base. . .

What's left of the Ranger Station's Bay-side dock

That same bay-side dock as seen from the tower top. . .

Remnants of the bay-side dock's lead-up boardwalk

The Ranger Station.  The pathway to it used to be a boardwalk, the only portion of which remains is that small gray section at the bottom-center of this photo.

From ground-level, the path (onetime boardwalk) as you walk from the Ranger Station to the lighthouse.  That's George and Dave up ahead.

The eastern end of that path is to the lower-left of this photo.  The earth-movers were used to get the sand off the Ranger Station's parking lot. I was told that the stacks of lumber and Trex planking along the back of the parking lot are salvaged from the boardwalk and will eventually be re-used when a new boardwalk is built.

A closer shot of the earthmovers and salvaged planks

Wes and my Lens Building.  The boardwalks to it - which used to be in the upper left corner of this photo - are gone; only sand pathways remain.  So there is no access to the lighthouse from the Robert Moses State Park's parking fields any more.  Until they are re-built we will likely be accepting only visitors who come to us via bus - like schoolkids on Field Trips.

A long-range shot looking eastward - towards hamlet of Kismet - from the tower top.

Many, if not most, of today's helpers.  What a happy bunch!

One last long-range shot, looking westward from the tower top.  All of those sand pathways, other than the wide one (Burma Road) were once boardwalks. And the pathways remaining on the ocean-side of Burma Road leading all the way to the visitor parking lot - in the far upper-right corner of the photo - are hard to see at all, too.