Hurricane Grazes N.Y., Loses Fury : 2 Million Left Without Power on East Coast

Hurricane Gloria, one of the largest and most feared storms of the century, spun up the East Coast through New England on Friday as more than half a million people fled its fury. But its damage, though substantial, was far less than predicted.

More than 2 million customers were without power from North Carolina to Connecticut, thousands of trees and electrical lines were toppled and stock exchanges, businesses and Atlantic City’s casinos were closed. Manhattan was turned into a ghost town as wind and rain lashed skyscrapers and streets. Seventy percent of the city’s businesses closed in anticipation of the storm. Many high-rise towers taped their windows and boarded up doors, leaving only small openings for those who ventured to work.

6 Die in Accidents

At least six people were killed in accidents blamed on the storm. Two travelers were rescued when their tractor-trailer, lashed by angry winds and torrential rain, plunged from the Tappan Zee Bridge into the Hudson River in New York state.

But as the day progressed, the hurricane’s 130-m.p.h. winds weakened. Towering tides failed to materialize, and destruction was less than expected as Gloria, traveling quickly, grazed the coast with its weaker, western side. The hurricane moved in synch with low tide, holding down flooding.

By Friday night, as Gloria swept over western Maine and moved into Canada’s maritime provinces, it was downgraded from a hurricane to a tropical storm.

On eastern Long Island, Charles Wakefield echoed a widely held sentiment as he used a chain saw to cut an elm tree that smashed his chain-link fence in Mastic Beach. “If this went the other way, forget about my house,” Wakefield said thankfully. “We did all right. We expected much worse.”

While forecasters’ greatest anxieties went unfulfilled, nature’s display was sometimes awesome.

At the height of the storm, slender birch trees in front of Suffolk County’s storm command post at Yaphank, N.Y., were easily bent in half. A 75-foot emergency radio tower in Yaphank toppled to the ground, a nearby American flag was shredded on its pole. Tall trees were snapped in half along Long Island’s Sunrise Highway. Downed power lines crisscrossed roads.

At the William Floyd High School in nearby Mastic, a community about 60 miles northeast of New York City, clocks stopped at 11:43 a.m. when the power went out. In the auditorium of the darkened school, which was being used as a temporary shelter for evacuees, more than 500 people crowded together, clutching blankets, toys and transistor radios tuned to the latest storm news. Children fidgeted restlessly.

“It’s confusing with everyone in here,” 16-year-old Dawn Brandt said as she held her 10-week-old German Shepherd, Lucky, and her cat, Daisy, tightly to her side. “It’s scary.”

Outside, in the hallway, Sal Maroldo, 94, and his wife, Della, 85, sat in lawn chairs. At 4:30 a.m., a neighbor called to warn them of the approaching storm. Others were notified of Gloria by police and fire vehicles that cruised streets, using loudspeakers to urge residents to evacuate.

Medical Technicians

“Thank God we had a place to go,” Maroldo said.

Nearby, an area of the darkened hallway was turned into a makeshift MASH unit with emergency medical technicians working by flashlight. Dripping with sweat, technician John Conti administered an EKG to an 86-year-old man who had collapsed. His elderly patient, identified only as Peter, pleaded to go home. The technicians finally convinced him that he should be sent to a hospital.

“We’re run ragged,” Conti said, adding that he and his staff had been working around the clock.

“A lot of old people with heart conditions came in,” said Eileen Mahon, a nurse. “They didn’t eat. They came without their medications. They’re panicking.”

At Westhampton Beach, a posh Long Island resort community, Gloria ripped roofs from expensive homes and scuttled boats moored in a yacht basin. Power lines were strewn like spaghetti. The La Ronde Beach Club was damaged and the roof was blown off a nearby condominium complex, leaving pink insulation strewn in the road.

One house resembled a movie set. The side of the house facing the ocean was blown away.

‘Some Devastation’

“There has been some devastation and damage, no doubt about it,” said Peter F. Cohalen, Suffolk County Executive. “There has been a great deal of devastation all over Long Island.”

All along the Eastern seaboard--from North Carolina to Maine--governors declared states of emergency. Classes were canceled and schools were turned into shelters. Hundreds of military aircraft and dozens of ships were moved from their coastal home bases to protect them from the storm.

In New York, the 110-story twin towers of the World Trade Center were closed, and the bases of some skyscrapers near the Hudson and East River were sandbagged. After the torrential rains, reservoir levels were up 10%--a major plus for the drought-stricken city. As the storm approached, the Statue of Liberty’s torch, which had been removed for renovation, was brought indoors.

The rain flooded subways and the East River Drive near the United Nations. The water threatened to flow into the basement of Gracie Mansion, the mayor’s official residence.

In the offices of the National Weather Service at Rockefeller Center, Bob Baskerville, a meteorologist, peered at its outline on radar screens. “The storm is a weather man’s dream as far as using our technology,” he said. Paper cups filled with cold coffee littered desks around him. He and his fellow meteorologists were red-eyed from lack of sleep.

Cliff Crowley, meteorologist in charge, paced back and forth holding charts. At 12:05 p.m. he received a phone call from an aide to Gov. Mario M. Cuomo, requesting the storm’s latest position.

“It looks like its going to come ashore somewhere along Fire Island,” Crowley said. “No fix on the position, possibly Robert Moses State Park.” Just then a voice over the Civil Defense radio interrupted from Merrick, Long Island.

Gloria’s Eye Overhead

“We have sunshine,” the radio said, announcing Gloria’s eye was overhead.

“Here we go. We’ve got landfall,” Crowley, a 17-year veteran of the weather service who was tracking his first hurricane, shouted.

Actually, several communities on Long Island competed for the favor of Gloria’s eye.

“Three or four towns were all reporting they were in the eye of the storm,” said Suffolk County police officer William Brown as he manned a phone in the command post at Yaphank. “Everybody wants to be in the eye.”

As the eye passed over one Long Island community, youngsters came out of their houses to frolic in the sunshine.

And as Gloria moved across Long Island into Connecticut and New England, entrepreneurs flourished in its wake.

Steve Spicker, 23, and three friends drove, armed with chain saws, through Mastic Beach. They offered to cut trees from cars and limbs from driveways. Their plan was to sell the wood for $150 a cord.

In Connecticut, officials said 684,000 homes were without power--more than half the homes in the state--and that it might take days before all power is restored. Northeast Utilities in Connecticut shut down its Connecticut Yankee nuclear power plant at Haddam Neck because some support buildings were not designed to withstand 100 m.p.h. winds and its Millstone One and Two nuclear reactors were also shut down as a precaution. Other utilities along the seaboard followed the same pattern.

In New London, Conn., on Long Island Sound, power was lost at 1:30 p.m. as the storm passed. Power lines in the community of 28,000 were ripped from their poles.

Police predicted power would be restored within a day.

Connecticut’s Gov. William A. O’Neill said he would ask the Reagan Administration for federal assistance, once a survey of damage throughout the state was completed.

Little Damage in Boston

Gloria, weakening as she moved north, brushed by Boston with little damage. College students were out in force, playing hurricane Frisbee. One student tried to rig a sail on a skateboard, with no success. Winds came at low tide, so flooding was minimized. But 30 feet of foremast was ripped from Old Ironsides, the U.S.S. Constitution, in Boston’s harbor.

To the South in Rhode Island, 30,000 homes were without electricity. But there were no reports of injuries or extensive damage.

Early Friday, Gloria slammed into the beaches of southern Virginia. But its 75-m.p.h. winds and gusts of 105 m.p.h. brought no major damage or serious injuries.

‘Very, Very Lucky’

“I guess somebody somewhere may have had a splinter, but we haven’t heard about it,” said Bob Ray, coordinator of emergency services for Virginia Beach. “After everything we were preparing for, we were very, very lucky.”

When the residents of Morehead City, N.C., returned to their homes and businesses, they wondered what all the fuss was about. Gloria had promised to hit the fishing community and resort with a vengeance.

But Ralph Fulcher, 69, said: “It looks like an ordinary morning in Morehead City. I haven’t seen much damage or nothing--except for a few tree limbs, like after any heavy rain.”

That assessment was shared by local officials. A few trees had been uprooted at the municipal park and several schoolyards. The fancy canopy on Rex’s Italian restaurant on Arendell Street had crumbled and power was out in part of the town. But there was no major damage.

Virtually Shipshape

Along the waterfront where boats bobbed in choppy seas, captains and crew found everything virtually shipshape. “We were just lucky,” said George Bedsworth, a charter boat operator, as he checked for damage aboard his 50-foot blue and white boat, Dolphin I. “The good Lord was looking after us. The hurricane turned the other way.”

Atlantic City rolled a lucky seven. Casinos were shut as Gloria hugged the coast and moved toward the gambling capital of the East. The storm’s 75-m.p.h. winds pounded the famous Atlantic City boardwalk, buckling a five block stretch. Benches were hurled onto the beach, an abandoned theater collapsed, some casino signs were ripped from hotels.

But, compared to what was predicted, the damage was slight. Elsewhere in New Jersey, about 165,000 people were evacuated and as the storm approached, three-quarters of Atlantic City’s population of 38,000 left the area for higher ground.

Historic Hurricane

In essence, Gloria followed the same path as the historic hurricane of 1938 that killed more than 600 people. And as the storm was tracked, there were fears of a similar catastrophie. But by hugging the coast, Gloria’s strongest winds on its eastern edge remained over the Atlantic. The storm began weakening as it approached Long Island and New York City, where the potential for tragedy was greatest. Unlike the 1938 hurricane, Gloria arrived at low tide, minimizing flooding.

“As the storm of the century, it was a washout,” said Henry Stern, New York City’s parks commissioner. “We suffered serious losses, but it was not the grand tragedy we feared.”

Times Staff Writers David Treadwell in Morehead City, N.C., Josh Getlin in Norfolk, Va., Richard Eder in Boston, Mass., Robert E. Dallos, Carol McGraw, Elizabeth Mehren and Don Shannon in New York and researchers Tony Robinson and Siobhan Flynn contributed to this story.

The New York and American stock exchanges closed Friday due to the hurricane. Story in Business.