Diocesan News

Only in Print: Former Fire Chief Recounts Miracles the Night Sandy Inundated Breezy Point

Marty Ingram, retired chief for Point Breeze Fire Department, stands beside the “Clamshell Mary Statue” in Breezy Point. The statue survived a massive fire sparked by Superstorm Sandy on Oct. 29, 2012. It was restored and repositioned in Blessed Trinity Parish, a few blocks away from the burn zone, but with an inscription from a grateful community.

BREEZY POINT — Waves of seawater swept like whitewater rapids across the Rockaway Peninsula as Hurricane Sandy viciously stabbed western Long Island on its path to Manhattan on Oct. 29, 2012. 

Despite orders to evacuate, volunteer firefighters stayed in this land’s end community and readied themselves for high-water rescues. Then Sandy’s fierce winds fanned a house fire that grew to become a six-alarm inferno…


The rest of this article can be found exclusively in the Oct. 29 printed version of The Tablet. You can buy it at church for $1, or you can receive future editions of the paper in your mailbox at a discounted rate by subscribing hereThank you for supporting Catholic journalism.